英语听力：2013-11-01 地平线：黑洞吞噬—19

 We now know this light is produced by the rotating disk of matter, spinning round the edge of the black hole at the heart of the Cygnus A galaxy¹, waiting to be devoured². It means that against all popular expectations, the brightest sources of light in the universe are actually black holes. 

 

That fundamental fact is one of the great surprises about black holes. By their very name, you would think that black holes would be these dark objects that wouldn't produce any light and that's true if you just have a black hole sitting by itself alone, it doesn't produce any light. But in nature, we have gas spiraling into black holes and that turns out to produce the most efficient sources of light and the brightest sources of light that we know of in the universe. 

 

So here then was the answer to the great quasar mystery. Quasars are nothing less than feeding, super massive black holes. It was exactly what Donald Lyndon-Bell had first predicted. 

 

Behind every quasar is a black hole. And it took a long time for even astronomers³ to accept this because it's quite a concept that there are these engines out there that fit a variety of different situations and produce some of the most energetic phenomena⁴ we see in the universe. 

 

Today, the black hole at the centre of our galaxy is dark.

1 galaxy   

n.星系；银河系；一群(杰出或著名的人物)

参考例句：

• The earth is one of the planets in the Galaxy.地球是银河系中的星球之一。
• The company has a galaxy of talent.该公司拥有一批优秀的人才。

2 devoured   

吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光

参考例句：

• She devoured everything she could lay her hands on: books, magazines and newspapers. 无论是书、杂志，还是报纸，只要能弄得到，她都看得津津有味。
• The lions devoured a zebra in a short time. 狮子一会儿就吃掉了一匹斑马。

3 astronomers   

n.天文学者，天文学家( astronomer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Astronomers can accurately foretell the date,time,and length of future eclipses. 天文学家能精确地预告未来日食月食的日期、时刻和时长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Astronomers used to ask why only Saturn has rings. 天文学家们过去一直感到奇怪，为什么只有土星有光环。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 phenomena   

n.现象

参考例句：

• Ade couldn't relate the phenomena with any theory he knew.艾德无法用他所知道的任何理论来解释这种现象。
• The object of these experiments was to find the connection,if any,between the two phenomena.这些实验的目的就是探索这两种现象之间的联系，如果存在着任何联系的话。