科学美国人60秒:流星风暴-托福听力下载

点击查看>>科学美国人60秒音频：流星风暴

　　科学美国人60秒中英文翻译：流星风暴

　　科学美国人60秒英文文本

　　What if they held a meteor storm and no meteors came?

　　That's what many people are asking after the well-hyped May Camelopardalids meteor outburst turned out to be a dud.

　　Most meteors arise from mere dust grains and pebbles in space.

　　When Earth passes through a stream of this debris shed by a comet, the particles burn up in our atmosphere, and we see a meteor shower.

　　Some astronomers had predicted that on the night of May 23, particles from a comet called LINEAR would bring many meteors to the night sky.

　　North America had the best seats for the event.

　　流星风暴.jpg

　　And so a lot of people watched and waited.

　　But no one saw much.

　　Meteor showers are common, and the best produce about a hundred meteors per hour.

　　But meteor storms, which can send out thousands of meteors per hour, are rare and notoriously unreliable.

　　Not only can predicted storms go bust, but great storms can erupt without warning.

　　In November 1966, the normally weak Leonids surprised everyone and roared back to life, producing more than 100,000 shooting stars in a single hour.

　　You can still count on astronomers to tell you exactly when the next eclipse will be.

　　But if they ever promise you a meteor storm, you should take it with a grain of, well, meteor dust.

　　中文翻译请点击下一页