Reading Selections for ID1113, p



Reading Selections for ID1113, p. 37-39

Exercises

Vocabulary

1. Match the words in column A with their corresponding synonym in column B.

|A |B |Match |

|1. barely |ejecting |1. __b__ |

|2. by far |hardly |2. __f__ |

|3. dwarf |matter |3. __d__ |

|4. issue |minimize |4. __c__ |

|5. patch |spot |5. __e__ |

|6. spewing |very much |6. __a__ |

2. Choose one word from the chart above to complete the following sentences.

a. They were ____by far______ the largest and most distant objects that scientists have ever detected.

b. According to the theory, the universe burst into being as a submicroscopic, unimaginably dense knot of pure energy that flew outward in all directions, ____spewing________ radiation as it went.

c. Even the smallest _____patch_______ observed by COBE is by far the largest area ever surveyed.

d. The structures ____dwarf_______ the “great wall” of galaxies discovered in 1990.

e. Will the cosmos expand forever? The answer comes down to a simple ___issue________.

f. The cosmos will continue to expand, but ever more slowly, until eons from now its growth will be ____barely_______ perceptible. (Teacher’s note: ‘barely’ = almost not

Understanding the text

1. Answer the following questions.

a. What is COBE?

A satellite: Cosmic Background Explorer.

b. What has COBE discovered and what is the relevance of this discovery?

COBE discovered “a set of gargantuan cosmic clouds some 15 billion light-years from Earth” —evidence of the primeval explosion (i.e., the Big Bang)

2. True or False questions. Justify your answers.

a. The first signals received from COBE gave immediate evidence in favor of the Big Bang theory. _F__

See paragraph 5: “The first maps of the microwave sky […] showed nothing.”

b. The original sources of the heat radiation detected by COBE must have already been transformed into clusters of galaxies. _T__

See paragraph 7: Since they have traveled for 15 billion years, they have “evolved into groups of galaxies.”

c. The universe will end up in a “big crunch” tens of billions [pic]years from now. _F__

This is speculation. See the inset (i.e., the information inside a square frame).

3. Select the correct alternative:

COBE was designed in order to:

a. detect local microwaves from the Milky Way galaxy.

b. look for warm and cool spots mottling the microwave background radiation. (Par. 4-5

c. discover the cosmic microwave background radiation.

d. measure the amount of dark matter in space.

Which of the following is a fact?

a. Invisible haloes of dark matter are keeping all galaxies from flying apart. (Par. 11

b. The universe expanded in size by more than a trillion fold in less than a second. (Par. 9

c. All visible stars and galaxies constitute 1% of existing matter. (Par. 10

d. The universe is filled with cosmic background radiation.

Consolidation activity

1. Explain what the author means when he states that “hot spots are the seed of local objects like clusters and superclusters of galaxies.”

Hot spots concentrate density and so attract surrounding atoms. Eventually they become galaxies (groups of galaxies).

2. How would you describe the author’s attitude, and for what type of reader was the article written? Explain.

This article appeared in Time, a magazine for the general public. The author’s attitude is casual.

3. What is the main evidence supporting Big Bang cosmology discussed in this article?

The existence of hot spots of cosmic clouds 15 billion light-years from Earth.

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