2018考研英语双语阅读：爱因斯坦引力波首次得到证实

　　2018考研复习进行时，考研英语阅读真题中的文章，多摘自英美主流外刊，有时候你认识所有单词、搞清全部语法还不够，还需要了解英美文化，掌握他们的表达方式，这就是阅读的潜台词。下面新东方在线考研整理《2018考研英语双语阅读精选》，速来学习吧！

　　Einstein’s waves detected in star smash

　　爱因斯坦引力波首次得到证实

　　Scientists have detected the warping of space generated by the collision of two dead stars, or neutron stars.

　　科学家们已经对两颗死星或者中子星碰撞后造成的空间扭曲进行了证实。

　　They have confirmed that such mergers lead to the production of the gold and platinum that exists in the Universe.

　　他们已经证实了正是这种合并导致了宇宙中金和铂的产生。

　　The measurement of the gravitational waves given off by this cataclysmic event was made on 17 August by the LIGO-VIRGO Collaboration.

　　8月17日通过LIGO-VIRGO 两台探测器的共同协作，这些科学家们对那次灾难性事件释放的引力波做了测量。

　　The discovery enabled telescopes all over the world to capture details of the merger as it unfolded.

　　此次发现可以使全世界上的望远镜俘获引力波展开时合并的细节。

　　David Reitze, executive director of the LIGO Laboratory at Caltech in Pasadena, California, said: "This is the one we’ve all been waiting for."

　　加州帕萨迪娜市加州理工学院LIGO实验室执行主任David Reitze说：“这一直都是我们等待的结果。”。

　　The outburst took place in a galaxy called NGC 4993, located roughly a thousand billion, billion km away in the Constellation Hydra.

　　该爆炸发生在编号为NGC4993星系中，位置在九头蛇星座，距离大约在十亿兆公里外。

　　It happened 130 million years ago - when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. It was so far away that the light and gravitational waves have only just reached us.

　　此事发生在13万年之前，而那时恐龙还漫步在地球上。由于距离太远，爆炸后产生的光和引力波才刚刚传到我们这儿。

　　The stars themselves had masses 10-20% greater than our Sun - but they were no larger than 30km across.

　　这些星体的质量要比我们的太阳大上10-20%，但直径不到30公里。

　　They were the crushed leftover cores of massive stars that long ago exploded as supernovas.

　　它们是很久以前大爆炸后，作为超新星粉碎后剩下的具有大质量的星核。

　　They are called neutron stars because the process of crushing the star makes the charged protons and electrons in the atoms of the star combine - to form an object made entirely of neutrons.

　　它们被称作中子星，由于星体粉碎过程中产生了星体结合的原子中的带电质子和电子，从而完全形成了由中子产生的物体。

　　Such remnants are incredibly dense - a teaspoonful would weigh a billion tonnes.

　　这种残留物密度异常之大，一茶匙的量会重达10亿吨。

　　In the landscaped campus of one of the laboratories that made the detection, a fountain sprays jets of water skyward which are then pulled back down by gravity, sending ripples across the crystal clear pond.

　　此次验证实验是在众多实验室中的其中之一，实验室位于景致美观的校园里面。这里喷泉喷射的水直冲霄汉，随后又被重力拉回水面。荡起的涟漪在晶莹透亮的水池里舒展开来。

　　The LIGO detector, sitting incongruously in the vast woodland of Livingston in Louisiana, was designed to detect the gravitational ripples across the Universe created by cataclysmic cosmic events.

　　这台LIGO探测仪，安置在路易斯安那州利文斯顿广阔的林中，看起来不那么协调。它是专门为探测宇宙中因灾难性宇宙事件产生的引力波涟漪而设计的。

　　Since it was upgraded two years ago, it has four times sensed the collisions of black holes.

　　自从两年前被升级改造后，这台探测仪已有四次感知到了来自黑洞里的碰撞。

　　Gravitational waves caused by violent events send ripples through space-time that stretch and squeeze everything they pass through by a tiny amount - less than the width of an atom.

　　由这些猛烈事件产生的引力波通过时空传送涟漪，它们再通过这些极小的数量(小于原子的直径)延伸并挤压途径它们的一切物质。

　　Researchers had suspected that this huge release of energy leads to the creation of rare elements, such as gold and platinum.

　　研究人员推测这种被释放的巨大能量导致了稀有元素的产生，例如金和铂。

　　Dr Kate Maguire, from Queen’s University Belfast, who analysed the collision’s burst of light, said that the theory was now proven.

　　来自贝尔法斯特女王大学的Kate Maguire博士对光的碰撞燃烧进行了分析。他说，这个理论直到现在被证明了。

　　"Using some of the world’s best telescopes, we have discovered that this neutron star merger scattered heavy chemical elements, such as gold and platinum, out into space at high speeds.

　　“通过使用世界上一些最好的望远镜，我们发现，这些中子星的合并使重金属元素散落开来，例如，以高速运转在空间之外的金和铂。”

　　"These new results have significantly contributed to solving the long-debated mystery of the origin of elements heavier than iron in the periodic table."

　　“这些新的研究结果，意义非凡，可以解释元素周期表里面长期存在争议的谜团，即元素的原始状态比铁元素重。”

　　Dr Joe Lyman, of the University of Warwick said described the observations as "exquisite".

　　华威大学的乔.莱曼博士称这些观察研究是“精致的”

　　"They tell us that the heavy elements, like the gold or platinum in jewellery are the cinders, forged in the billion degree remnants of a merging neutron star."

　　“他们对我们说，像珠宝中的金或铂，这些重金属元素是合并的中子星在10亿度的高温下锻造后留下的残渣。”

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