媒体英语会带大家一起学习 BBC 撰稿人在报道世界大事时常用到的单词和短语。

智利的科学家说一项新科研显示银河系中有无数恒星有可能成为适宜人类居住的地方。天文学家们是通过高精度徑向速度行星搜索器技术来进行这项研究的。以下是BBC科技事务记者, Jason Palmer的报道。

Thousands of years of astronomy spent wondering about potentiallyhabitableplanets in the universe and then 64 billion come along at once.

The discovery of new planets has in recent years become commonplace but most have been spotted by looking at changes in the light of their bright stars. Now we have a view into the smaller, darker red dwarfs that make up 80 percent of stars in our galaxy.

The HARPS team peered at a representative sample of stars estimating that 40% of the 160 billion red dwarfs in our galaxy has a super-Earth circling in the Goldilocks or habitable zone; that's where the temperature is just right for liquid water.

Astronomers are getting better at spotting smaller planets close to Earth's size and it seems that everywhere they look and in every way they look, planets abound. There's still a long way to go to determine whether any of them has conditions suitable for life and a long way again to search for life itself.

But with billions of kitchens in which the ingredients of life might come together, it's ever more difficult to doubt that the recipe has been tried elsewhere.

• sample [´sæmpl, ´sɑ:mpəl]   n.样品；试样 vt.尝试   (初中英语单词)
• liquid [´likwid]   n.液体 a.流动的   (初中英语单词)
• suitable [´su:təbəl, ´sju:-]   a.合适的，适当的   (初中英语单词)
• elsewhere [,elsweə]   ad.在别处；向别处   (初中英语单词)
• universe [´ju:nivə:s]   n.天地；全人类；银河系   (高中英语单词)
• billion [´biljən]   num.万亿   (高中英语单词)
• abound [ə´baund]   vi.多；富于；充满   (高中英语单词)
• recipe [´resipi]   n.食谱；决窍；处方   (高中英语单词)
• astronomy [ə´strɔnəmi]   n.天文学   (英语四级单词)
• commonplace [´kɔmənpleis]   a.平凡的；常见的   (英语四级单词)