2017 考博英语 阅读题源经济学人文章每日精析（七十八）

考博英语阅读大部分博士研究生招生院校都使用《经济学人》杂志文章作为题源，考博信息网|http://www.kaoboinfo.com教育考博频道为考博生们将其中的文章进行深度分析，希望能提高大家的考博英语阅读水平，读懂长难句。

导读

过去科学家通过计算推测出了海王星，如今科学家通过观测计算又推测出了一个新星的存在。2022年，天文学家门将目睹天鹅星系中将出现一个新星。

De Nova Stella

新星诞生

A “new” star should appear in 2022

一颗新星将会在2022年出现

A tale of scientific serendipity

意外之喜的科学故事

Jan 14th 2017

2017年1月14日

X marks the spot

刻舟求剑

AMATEUR astronomers have a new date for their diaries. In 2022, in the constellation of Cygnus, they will be treated to the sight of a nova, or “new star”. By themselves, novas are not particularlynoteworthy. Several dozen a year happen in Earth’s home galaxy, the Milky Way, alone. But this one will be special for two reasons.

对于业余天文学家们来说这是一个新篇章。2022年，他们将目睹天鹅座星系中出现的一颗新星，即“新见星”的场面。不过对于他们来说，新星现象并不是特别罕见。仅就地球的母星系-银河系而言，每年都会出现数十次。但这一次的新星之所以格外引人瞩目，是因为以下两个原因。

constellation：n. 星系，星座

cygnus：n. 天鹅座

nova：n. 新星

noteworthy：adj. 值得注意的，显著的

One is its intensity: provided you are somewhere reasonably dark (in the countryside, in other words, rather than a big city) it will be bright enough to be seen by the naked eye. The second is that it will be the first nova whose existence was predicted before the fact. Assuming everything goes according to schedule, the credit for that will belong to Lawrence Molnar, an astronomer at Calvin College, in Michigan, and his team, who have set out their predictions in a paper to be published soon in theAstrophysical Journal.

第一个原因在于它的亮度：假若你在某些相当黑暗的地方(换言之，在乡村而不是大城市)，那么以肉眼就能清楚地看见它;第二个原因在于它将是第一个被观测到之前就被预测存在的新星。一切顺利的话，这一成绩将属于密歇根州卡尔文学院的天文学家Lawrence Molnar以及其团队，该团队预测性的文章不久后将要在天体物理学日报中发表。

provided：conj. 假如，倘若

astrophysical：adj.天体物理学的

It is a tale of scientific serendipity.” Nova ”, which is Latin for “ new ”, comes from the title of a book (also the title of this article) published in 1573 by Tycho Brahe, a Danish astronomer. This recorded what would now be called a supernova that had happened the year before.By proving that the “ new star ” in question was a very great distance away—at the least, further than the Moon—Brahe dealt a mortalblow to the Aristotelian belief, widespread in Europe at the time, that the heavens were perfect and unchanging.

这是科学探索过程中的一次意外惊喜。“Nova”一词在拉丁语中意为“新生的”，这个词在1573年，丹麦天文学家第谷•布拉赫(Tycho Brahe)撰写的书中首次(同时也在其书名中)出现。在书中，布拉赫对一颗在一年之前(1572年)爆发的“新星”(目前来看，称为超新星更加准确)进行了记述。布拉赫论述证明了这颗有待商榷的“新星”其实距离地球非常遥远，至少比月球与地球的距离要远得多。这一观点对当时主流的亚里士多德学派造成了毁灭性的打击，因为在16世纪的欧洲，人们普遍认为天宇是完美无缺、永恒不变的。

serendipity: n.意外发现珍奇事物的才能; 意外新发现; 巧事; 机缘凑巧;

mortal: adj. 致命的; 终有一死的; 极度的;

But the name is a misnomer. Novas are not new stars. Rather, they are explosions that take place on existing ones, drastically but temporarily increasing their brightness. There are several kinds, but Dr Molnar’ s nova will be caused when one member of a two-star system collides with the other, causing an enormous and violent outpouring of energy.

但是，“新星”这个名称其实并不准确。新星并不是刚刚诞生的恒星，而是原有的恒星发生爆炸，从而导致短时间内亮度急剧增加。新星的形成原因多种多样，而莫尔纳博士预测到的这颗则是由于双星系统中的两颗子星相互碰撞，造成巨量能量释放。

misnomer: n. 使用不当的名字或名称;

collide: vi.碰撞; 相撞; 冲突; 抵触

Dr Molnar’ s interest was piqued at a conference in 2013, when Karen Kinemuchi, another astronomer, presented some puzzling findings on a particular star seen by Kepler, a space telescope designed chiefly to hunt for exoplanets. When Dr Molnar and his team observed the star—named KIC9832227—they discovered that it was a “ contact binary ”, a pair of stars so close together that the smaller orbits within the atmosphere of the larger.

Molnar博士的兴趣源于2013年的一次会议，当时一位叫做Karen Kinemuchi的天文学家提出，她通过专门观测系外行星的太空望远镜——开普勒发现了在一个特殊的恒星系统中有一些难以解释的现象。当Molnar博士和他的团队观察这个被命名为KIC9832227的恒星系统时，他们发现这是一对“相接双星”，即一对靠的很近的恒星，小恒星的轨道在大恒星的气体外壳中。

piqued : v. 激起好奇心

exoplanet：n. 太阳系外行星

They also found that the smaller star was orbiting more quickly—and thus closer to its bigger companion—than it had been when Dr Kinemuchi made her measurements. Further observations confirmed that the smaller star was indeed spiralling towards its companion. Based on observations of another contact binary, V1309 Scorpii, which became a nova in 2008, the researchers were able to offer a prediction of the time of impact that, they hope, should be accurate to within about seven months. (The most likely date is a fifth of the way through 2022—ie, mid-March.)

他们同样发现了小恒星的轨道运行速度越来越快——这意味着它越来越靠近大恒星，Kinemuchi博士当时也测量到了这一点。进一步的观察确认，小的恒星的确在逐渐地向大的恒星靠拢。天蝎座v1309的双星是2008年出现的新星，基于对这对密接双星的观察，研究人员能够对碰撞时间做出预测，他们希望能够精确到7个月以内。(最可能的日期是2022年的五分之一处，即三月的中旬)

spiral : v. 使成螺旋形; 螺旋式的上升(或下降盘旋上升(或下降)

Successfully predicting a nova will be of interest to more than just amateur skywatchers. Astronomers have built mathematical models to describe what happens during such events, but testing them against reality is hard. All previous novas have been detected after the fact. Anyone wanting to study what happens before the explosion must therefore sift back through old observations, hoping that some information about the pre-nova star will have been recorded by chance. Armed with Dr Molnar’ s prediction, though, astronomers will be able to watch the build-up as well as the denouement.

并不仅仅只是业余天文观察者热衷于成功推测新星的出现。天文学家们已经建立了数学模型来描述在新星出现期间会发生的事情，但是很难在没有现实依据的情况下进行证实。以往的所有新星都是在出现之后才开始进行测量。因此，任何想要研究在爆炸之前发生了什么的人必须筛选旧的观察记录，希望找到在恒星变成新星之前能有一些偶然记录下的信息。尽管有了Molnar博士的预测，天文学家们在未来将会能够像已经知道结果了一样进行观测。

denouement：:n. (戏剧、小说等的) 结局;

背景：相接双星：相接双星又称密接双星，是一对彼此绕行，绕行一周仅需很短时间，且相距很近的恒星。属于密近双星的一种，根据科帕尔20世纪50年代的分类方法，密近双星被分为不相接双星(两子星都未充满其临界等位面)、半相接双星(只一子星充满其临界等位面)、相接双星(两子星都充满其临界等位面)三种。

双子星：物理学上是指两颗质量极其接近的星体，由于它们的万有引力十分接近，所以彼此吸引对方，互相绕着对方旋转不分离。