Professor: OK. We’ve been discussing the planets in our solar system and how some of the ones farthest from the sun were discovered.

　　Well, today I’d like to turn to what are called exoplanets and how researchers detect them. Maria?

　　Student: Exoplanets are planets that orbit around a star other than our Sun, right?

　　They are not in our solar system.

　　Professor: Right. They have different...what are called host stars.

　　And the study of exoplanets have been getting more and more exciting, hundreds of them have been discovered so far.

　　This is quite remarkable in view of the fact that the discovery of the first exoplanet was confirmed only in the mid-1990s.

　　Now we’re finding new ones every few weeks or so.

　　Student: So, uh, exactly why are we interested in these exoplanets anyway? Is it to see if there’s life on them?

　　Because it seems to me like the only exoplanets we ever hear about are gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn that couldn’t possibly support carbon-based life.

　　Professor: OK.Well, let’s talk about that. First, as for discovering life. Well, I think that sort of discovery is pretty far in the future, but it is an eventual goal.

　　For now, the focus is on locating planets within a host star’s so-called habitable zone, a zone that’s a certain distance from its star because only planets within this zone could conceivably support carbon-based life.

　　教授：我們一直在討論我們太陽(yáng)系中的星球，以及一些離太陽(yáng)最遠(yuǎn)的是如何被發(fā)現(xiàn)的。

　　那么，今天我想把話題轉(zhuǎn)向外星星球，以及研究人員是如何探測(cè)到它們的。Maria?

　　學(xué)生：外星星球就是那些環(huán)繞著一顆不同于我們的太陽(yáng)的恒星運(yùn)行的星球，對(duì)吧?

　　它們不在我們的太陽(yáng)系中。

　　教授：沒錯(cuò)，它們有不同的寄主星。

　　對(duì)外星星球的研究正變得越來越令人興奮，目前為止已經(jīng)發(fā)現(xiàn)好幾百個(gè)了。

　　鑒于二十世紀(jì)九十年代中期才確定發(fā)現(xiàn)了第一顆外星星球，這相當(dāng)值得一提。

　　現(xiàn)在我們大約每幾個(gè)星期就能發(fā)現(xiàn)新的。

　　學(xué)生：那么我們究竟為何對(duì)這些外星星球這么感興趣呢?是為了看看上面是否存在生命嗎?

　　因?yàn)樵谖铱磥恚�我們聽說過的唯一幾個(gè)外星星球比如木星和土星都是滿是氣體的龐然大物，根本不可能支持以碳為基礎(chǔ)的生命。

　　教授：好的，我們來講一下。首先關(guān)于發(fā)現(xiàn)生命。我想那種發(fā)現(xiàn)還要在很久之后的未來進(jìn)行，不過它是一個(gè)最終目標(biāo)。

　　就目前而言，焦點(diǎn)是在一個(gè)寄主星的所謂的適居帶內(nèi)定位星球，這個(gè)適居帶離恒星有一段距離，因?yàn)橹挥性谶@個(gè)適居帶內(nèi)的星球才有可能支持以碳為基礎(chǔ)的生命。

　　2016年托�？荚嚳紙�(chǎng)模擬訓(xùn)練及答案1-10

　　2016年托福閱讀預(yù)測(cè)模擬練習(xí)匯總