题型:阅读选择 题类:常考题 难易度:困难
江苏省苏州市2019-2020学年九年级上学期英语期末考试试卷(含听力音频)
Is there intelligent (有智力的) life on other planets? For years, scientists said "no" or "we don't know". But today this is changing. Seth Shostak and Alexandra Barnett are astronomers (天文学家). They believe intelligent life exists (存在) somewhere in the universe. They also think we will soon contact these beings (人;生物).
Why do Shostak and Barnett think intelligent life exists on other planets? The first reason is time. Scientists believe the universe is about 12 billion years old. "This is long enough for other planets to have intelligent life," say Shostak and Barnett. The second reason is size—the universe is huge. "Tools like the Hubble Telescope (哈勃望远镜) have shown that there are at least 100 billion galaxies," says Shostak. "And our galaxy, the Milky Way, has at least 100 billion stars. Some planets going around these stars might be similar to Earth."
In the past, it was hard to look for signs of intelligent life in the universe. But now, powerful telescopes (高倍望远镜) allow scientists to discover smaller planets. These planets might have intelligent life.
Have beings from space already visited Earth? "Probably not," says Shostak. However, intelligent beings may contact us in other way, such as radio signals (信号). In fact, they may be trying to communicate with us now, but we don't have the right tools to receive their messages. However, this is changing. By 2025, we could make contact with other life forms in our universe and we might help each other.
Our life will be different from nowadays with robots appearing in our homes. So what will the future be like? Here are some students' ideas.
I expect to live in a more beautiful and cleaner city. The street will be cleaned by the robots once a day. —Ben |
There will be more kinds of food to choose from and the food will be more delicious. The robots can make food for us。 —Karen |
We do not have to spend much time on heavy work because robots will take up most of our work, such as washing the clothes. So we will have more vacations. We can take a vacation on the moon. We will not live on the earth but on the moon or other planets. —Mark |
I expect that most families will have their own planes made by their robots, and travel will become more convenient. The plane is faster than any other transportation(交通工具). —Sue |
I hope robots can make clothes for us. The clothes could change their sizes and colors by themselves. —Sam |
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