Sunspots托福听力原文翻译及问题答案

Sunspots托福听力原文翻译及问题答案

一、Sunspots托福听力原文：

Narrator:Listen to part of a lecture in an astronomy class.Male Professor:We're going to start a study of sunspots today,and I think you'll find it rather interesting.Now I’m going to assume that you know that sunspots,in the most basic terms,are dark spots on the Sun's surface.That’ll do for now.The ancient Chinese were the first to record observations of sunspots as early as the year 165.

When later European astronomers wrote about sunspots,they didn't believe that the spots were actually on the Sun. That's because of their belief at the time that the“heavenly”bodies…the Sun,moon,stars and planets…were perfect…without any flaws or blemishes.So,the opinion was,the spots were actually something else…like shadows of planets crossing the Sun's face.And this was the thinking of European astronomers until the introduction of the telescope.Which brings us to our old friend,Galileo.

In the early 1600s,based on his observations of sunspots,Galileo proposed a new hypothesis.He pointed out that the shape of sunspots…well,the sunspots weren't circular.If they were shadows of the planets,they would be circular,right? So that was a problem for the prevailing view.And he also noticed that the shape of the sunspots changed as they seemed to move across the Sun’s surface.

Maybe a particular sunspot was sort of square,then later it would become more lopsided,then later something else…So there's another problem with the shadow hypothesis…because the shape of a planet doesn't change.What Galileo proposed was that sunspots were indeed a feature of the Sun.But he didn't know what kind of feature.

He proposed that they might be clouds in the atmosphere,the solar atmosphere.Especially because they seemed to change shape…and there was no predicting the changes.At least nothing Galileo could figure out.That random shape-changing would be consistent with the spots being clouds.Over the next couple hundred years,a lot of hypotheses were tossed around…the spots were mountains,or holes in the solar atmosphere through which the dark surface of the Sun could be seen.Then in 1843 an astronomer named Heinrich Schwabe made an interesting claim.Schwabe had been watching the sun every day that it was visible for seventeen years…looking for evidence of a new planet.

And he started keeping track of sunspots…mapping them so he wouldn't confuse them with any potential new planet.In the end there was no planet,but there was evidence that the number of sunspots increased and decreased in a pattern…a pattern that began repeating after ten years.And that was a huge breakthrough.Another astronomer,named Wolf,kept track of the sun for an even longer period—forty years actually.

So,Wolf did forty years of research and Schwabe did seventeen years of research.I think there’s a lesson there.Anyway,Wolf went through old records from various observatories in Europe,and put together a history of sunspot observations going back about 100 years.From this information,he was able to confirm the existence of a pattern,a repeating cycle.But Wolf detected an eleven-year cycle,not a ten-year cycle.Eleven year cycles?Does that sound familiar to anyone?No?Well,geomagnetic activity…the natural variations in the Earth’s magnetic field…it fluctuates in eleven-year cycles.Um,

well we'll cover this later in the semester…but for now…well,scientists in the late 19th century were aware of geomagnetic cycles,so when they heard that the sunspot cycle was also eleven years…well,they just had to find out what was going on.Suddenly everyone was doing studies of the possible relationship between the Sun and the Earth.Did the sunspots cause the geomagnetic fields,or did the geomagnetic fields cause the sunspots,or was there some other thing that caused both…

And astronomers did eventually figure out what sunspots have to do with magnetic fields.Actually,they are magnetic fields.And the fact that sunspots are magnetic fields accounts for their dark appearance.That's because magnetic fields reduce the pressure exerted on the gases inside of them,making the spots cooler than the rest of the sun’s surface.And since they're cooler,they're darker.

二、Sunspots托福听力中文翻译：

旁白：在天文学课上听一节课的一部分。男教授：我们今天要开始研究太阳黑子，我想你会发现这很有趣。现在我假设你知道太阳黑子，从最基本的角度来说，是太阳表面的黑点。现在就这样吧。早在165年，中国古代就首次记录了对太阳黑子的观测。

后来欧洲天文学家在写关于太阳黑子的文章时，他们不相信这些黑子实际上就在太阳上；这是因为当时他们相信“天体”…太阳、月亮、恒星和行星…都是完美的…没有任何瑕疵或瑕疵。因此，人们的观点是，这些斑点实际上是其他东西……就像行星的阴影穿过太阳的脸。这是欧洲天文学家在望远镜问世之前的想法。这让我们想到了我们的老朋友伽利略。

17世纪初，伽利略根据对太阳黑子的观测，提出了一个新的假设。他指出，太阳黑子的形状……嗯，太阳黑子不是圆形的。如果它们是行星的阴影，它们就会是圆形的，对吗&nbsp；因此，这是主流观点的一个问题。他还注意到，当太阳黑子似乎在太阳表面移动时，其形状发生了变化。

也许一个特定的太阳黑子是方形的，然后它会变得更不平衡，然后是其他的……所以阴影假设还有另一个问题……因为行星的形状不会改变。伽利略提出的是，太阳黑子确实是太阳的一个特征。但他不知道这是什么特征。

他提出，它们可能是大气中的云，太阳大气。尤其是因为它们似乎在改变形状……而且无法预测这些变化。至少伽利略什么都搞不清楚。这种随机形状变化将与云斑一致。在接下来的几百年里，人们提出了很多假设……这些斑点是太阳大气中的山脉或洞，通过这些洞可以看到太阳黑暗的表面。1843年，一位名叫海因里希·施瓦布的天文学家提出了一个有趣的说法。十七年来，施瓦布每天都在观察太阳，寻找一颗新行星的证据。

他开始跟踪太阳黑子……绘制它们的地图，这样他就不会把它们与任何潜在的新行星混淆。最终没有行星，但有证据表明，太阳黑子的数量以某种模式增减……这种模式在十年后开始重复。这是一个巨大的突破。另一位名叫沃尔夫的天文学家，实际上跟踪太阳的时间更长，长达四十年。

所以，沃尔夫做了四十年的研究，施瓦布做了十七年的研究。我想这是一个教训。无论如何，沃尔夫查阅了欧洲各天文台的旧记录，整理了大约100年前的太阳黑子观测历史。从这些信息中，他能够确认一种模式的存在，一种重复的循环。但沃尔夫发现了11年的周期，而不是10年的周期。十一年周期？这听起来有人熟悉吗？不嗯，地磁活动……地球磁场的自然变化……它以11年为周期波动。嗯，

嗯，我们将在本学期晚些时候讨论这个问题……但现在……嗯，19世纪末的科学家们都知道地磁周期，所以当他们听说太阳黑子周期也是11年时……嗯，他们只是想知道到底发生了什么。突然，每个人都在研究太阳和地球之间可能的关系。是太阳黑子导致了地磁场，还是地磁场导致了太阳黑子，还是有其他什么东西导致了这两者…

天文学家最终发现了太阳黑子与磁场的关系。实际上，它们是磁场。太阳黑子是磁场这一事实解释了它们的暗外观。这是因为磁场降低了对内部气体施加的压力，使这些斑点比太阳表面的其他部分更冷。因为它们更酷，所以颜色更暗。

三、Sunspots托福听力问题：

Q1:1.What is the lecture mainly about?

A.The importance of record keeping in the development of hypotheses

B.The relationship between sunspots and Earth’s geomagnetic cycle

C.The progression of scientific knowledge about sunspots

D.The effect of sunspots on Earth’s climate

Q2:2.Why did European astronomers before the time of Galileo not believe sunspots were on the Sun’s surface?

A.They based their beliefs on earlier observations by Chinese astronomers.

B.The idea was contrary to their beliefs about objects in space.

C.The sunspots often changed their shape.

D.The sunspots were not always visible.

Q3:3.Which hypothesis regarding sunspots did Galileo challenge?

A.Sunspots are shadows of planets crossing the Sun.

B.Sunspots are clouds in the solar atmosphere.

C.Sunspots are evidence of the Sun’s rotation.

D.Sunspots are evidence of magnetic fields.

Q4:4.What was the importance of Schwabe’s observations?

A.They determined the age of sunspots.

B.They established that sunspots appear in cycles.

C.They proved that sunspots were actually on the Sun.

D.They showed the reason that sunspots change their shape

Q5:5.What is the professor’s attitude toward Schwabe’s and Wolf’s research?

A.He is surprised that the research is contradictory.

B.He is impressed by how many years were spent on the research.

C.He has difficulty believing that research should take so long.

D.He doubts that the research is given enough credit by modern astronomers.

Q6:6.Whatdoes the professor imply about the discovery of a relationship between the sunspot cycle and Earth’s geomagnetic cycle?

A.It proved that Galileo’s cloud hypothesis was correct.

B.It showed how conditions on Earth can affect the Sun.

C.It was the start of modern astronomy.

D.It led to a period of intense scientific research.

四、Sunspots托福听力答案：

A1:正确答案：C

A2:正确答案：B

A3:正确答案：A

A4:正确答案：B

A5:正确答案：B

A6:正确答案：D

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