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  3. Until recently most astronomers believed that the space between the galaxies

Until recently most astronomers believed that the space between the galaxies

游客2024-01-13  64
问题     Until recently most astronomers believed that the space between the galaxies in our universe was a near perfect vacuum. This orthodox view of the universe is now being challenged by astronomers who believe that a heavy "rain" of gas is falling into many galaxies from the supposedly empty space around them. The gas apparently con- denses into a collection of small stars, each a little larger than the planet Jupiter. These stars vastly outnumber the other stars in a given galaxy. The amount of " intergalactic rainfall" into some of these galaxies has been enough to double their mass in the time since they formed. Scientists have begun to suspect that this intergalactic gas is probably a mixture of gases left over from the "big bang" when the galaxies were formed and gas was forced out of galaxies by supernova explosions.
    It is well known that when gas is cooled at a constant pressure its volume decreases. Thus, the physicist Fabian reasoned that as intergalactic gas cools, the cooler gas shrinks inward toward the center of the galaxy. Meanwhile its place is taken by hotter intergalactic gas from farther out on the edge of the galaxy, which cools as it is compressed and flows into the galaxy. The net result is a continuous flow of gas, starting as hot gases in inter galactic space and ending as a drizzle of cool gas called a "cooling flow," falling into the central galaxy.
    A fairly heretical idea in the 1970’s, the cooling-flow theory gained sup- port when Fabian observed a cluster of galaxies in the constellation Perseus and found the central galaxy, NGC 1275, to be a strange-looking object with irregular, thin strands of gas radiating from it. According to previous speculation, these strands were gases that had been blown out by an explosion in the galaxy. Fabian, however, disagreed. Because the strands of gas radiating from NGC 1275 are visible in optical photographs, Fabian suggested that such strands consisted not of gas blown out of the galaxy but of cooling flows of gas streaming inward. He noted that the wavelengths of the radiation emitted by a gas would changes as the gas cooled, so that as the gas flowed into the galaxy and became cooler, it would emit not x-rays, but visible light, like that which was captured in the photographs. Fabian’s hypothesis was supported by Canizares’ determination in 1982 that most of the gas in the Perseus cluster was at a temperature of 80 mil lion degrees Kelvin, whereas the gas immediately surrounding NGC 1275(the subject of the photographs)was at one-tenth this temperature. [br] The author uses the phrase "orthodox view of the universe"(lines 4 - 5)to refer to the belief that
选项 A、the space between the galaxies is devoid of matter.
B、the space between galaxies is occupied by stars that cannot be detected by optical photographs.
C、galaxies have decreased in mass by half since their formation.
D、galaxies contain stars, each the size of Jupiter, which form clusters.
E、galaxies are being penetrated by gas forced out of other galaxies by supernova explosions.
答案 A
解析 文中L4—5指出的“正统观念”是指哪种信念?看原文，这一正统观点即原文第一句话的内容。∴A正确。星系之间的空间是真空的。B、C、D、E都和原文叙述无关。
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