Finding the Extraterrestrial

张璇

In 1961， scientists set up gigantic， sensitive apparatus （敏感器件） to collect radio waves from the far reaches of space， hoping to discover in them some mathematical pattern （數学模式） indicating that the waves were sent out by other intelligent beings. The first attempt failed， but someday the experiment may succeed.

What reason is there to think that we may actually detect （发现） intelligent life in outer space？ To begin with， modern theories of the development of stars suggest that almost every star has some sort of family of planets. So any star like our wan sun （and there are billions of such stars in the universe） is likely to have a planet situated at such a distance that it would receive about the same amount of radiation （放射物） as the earth.

Furthermore， such a planet would probably have the same general composition as our own; so， allowing a billion years or two — or three — there would be a very good chance for life to develop， if current theories of the origin of life are correct.

But intelligent life？

Life that has reached the stage of being able to sent radio waves out into space in a deliberate pattern？ Our own planet may have been in existence （存在） for five billion years and may have had life on it for two billion， but it is only in the last fifty years that intelligent life capable of sending radio waves into space has lived on earth. From this it might seem that even if there were no technical problems involved， the chance of receiving signals from any particular earth-type planet would be extremely small.

This does not mean that intelligent life at our level does not exist somewhere. There is such an unimaginable （难以想象的） number of stars that， even at such miserable odds （几率）， it seems certain that there are million of intelligent life forms scattered through space. The only trouble is， none may be within hailing distance （在附近） of us. Perhaps none ever will be; perhaps the appalling distances that separate us from our fellow denizens of this universe will forever remain too great to be conquered. And yet it is conceivable that someday we may come across one of them or， frighteningly， one of them may come across us. What would they be like， these extraterrestrial （天外来客） creatures？

Reading Comprehension

I. Fill in the blanks.

1. In ____， scientists set up gigantic， sensitive apparatus to collect radio waves from the far reaches of space.

2. In the ____ that intelligent life capable of sending radio waves into space has lived on earth.

II. Translation.

1. The first attempt failed， but someday the experiment may succeed.

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2. This does not mean that intelligent life at our level does not exist somewhere.

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（Key  p. 37）