英语听力：自然百科 金星和水星旅行指南 Venus and Mercury-10

 Move away from the sun, and you'd expect things to cool down a little. Venus, the picture of coolness and calm, all pale but gully-cloaked by clouds but the planet of love is shrouded¹ in mystery-----------draw beneath her treacherous² veil at your own risk.

 

Planning a vacation to Venus, nothing is as it should be here on our twisted alien twin. Beneath the clouds, it's the only planet in the solar system to rotate backwards³ and it does so very slowly.

 

The sun, if you could see it, rises in the west and sets in the east. An entire day here lasts for 8 earth months which is longer than the Venusian year.

 

Venus, you can walk around the planet faster than the planet rotates.

 

The sky above is as heavy as it looks, loaded with CO2.

 

Venus' cloud cover is mostly made of carbon dioxide. On the earth, we have the same amount, but it's tied up in rocks like limestones⁴ just tied up in grits⁵. On Venus, all that carbon dioxide is in the air.

 

It's the differences between these worlds that are so intriguing⁶. That's because four and a half billion years ago, Venus and earth started out as planetary twins.

 

They were formed right next to each other. They are very close to each other in the solar system. They have similar sizes.

 

Not only that, we now know that the planets were exchanging material early on, that Bits of earth were falling on Venus and that's what Venus was falling on earth. So, if life started on any of these worlds, it may well have spread among them through these little chips getting knocked off from all the impacts that were happening now but all the big collisions……

1 shrouded   

v.隐瞒( shroud的过去式和过去分词 )；保密

参考例句：

• The hills were shrouded in mist . 这些小山被笼罩在薄雾之中。
• The towers were shrouded in mist. 城楼被蒙上薄雾。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 treacherous   

adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的

参考例句：

• The surface water made the road treacherous for drivers.路面的积水对驾车者构成危险。
• The frozen snow was treacherous to walk on.在冻雪上行走有潜在危险。

3 backwards   

adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地

参考例句：

• He turned on the light and began to pace backwards and forwards.他打开电灯并开始走来走去。
• All the girls fell over backwards to get the party ready.姑娘们迫不及待地为聚会做准备。

4 limestones   

n.石灰岩( limestone的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The isotopic signatures of most ancient limestones indicated the same process. 大多数古代石灰岩的同位素特征说明了同样的过程。 来自辞典例句
• There are four principal types of limestones. 石灰岩有四种主要类型。 来自辞典例句

5 grits   

n.粗磨粉；粗面粉；粗燕麦粉；粗玉米粉；细石子，砂粒等( grit的名词复数 )；勇气和毅力v.以沙砾覆盖（某物），撒沙砾于( grit的第三人称单数 )；咬紧牙关

参考例句：

• The sands [grits] in the cooked rice made my tooth ache. 米饭里的砂粒硌痛了牙。 来自辞典例句
• This process also produces homing and corn grits. 此法也产生玉米麸(homing)和玉米粗粉。 来自辞典例句

6 intriguing   

adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心

参考例句：

• These discoveries raise intriguing questions. 这些发现带来了非常有趣的问题。
• It all sounds very intriguing. 这些听起来都很有趣。 来自《简明英汉词典》