今天前程百利小编为大家分享的是托福听力的背景材料-地球是“孤寡而老人”吗?大家都知道托福听力段子都来源于美国学生的大学校园生活，所以无处不透漏着美式思维。那么小编就为大家整理原汁原味的美式的背景材料为大家的听力备考助力。
原文：
Entrepreneur and former physicist Yuri Milner talks about the just-announced $100-million Breakthrough Listen Project to search for extraterrestrial technological civilizations
Are we alone in the universe?
“Well, ‘Are we alone?’ is one of the oldest questions, and numerous generations of scientists and just people are curious looking at the sky.”
Entrepreneur and former physicist Yuri Milner, founder of the Breakthrough Prizes in Fundamental Physics, Life Sciences and Mathematics.
YM: “So the 20th of July—this is the day [46th anniversary] of the Apollo [11] landing on the moon—we’re announcing a Breakthrough Listen Project, which is designed to be the most comprehensive and significant search for extraterrestrial intelligence so far.”
SM: Last week in a New York City restaurant, Milner spoke about the $100 million plan with Scientific American Editor-in-Chief Mariette DiChristina.
YM: “We will have signed the deals with the biggest telescopes in the world to allow for the best scientists and analysts to be able to accumulate a significant amount of information and to be able to look through that information for the signals of extraterrestrial nature.”
MD: “Tell us which telescopes they are and what kind of data they’ll be collecting.”
YM: “Well, we will start with three telescopes, the largest steerable telescope in the world is in Greenbank, Virginia, and the largest telescope in Australia, called Parkes. Those will be used for radio search. And then Lick Observatory will be our partner in optical search.”
MD: “I have one other question about that data that you’re gathering, you’re doing something very unusual about that data, aren’t you?”
“Well, the idea is really to combine the best of what Silicon Valley can offer with the access to the best telescopes in the world to create an environment where all the data will be made available to the scientists and the public. In addition, all the software will be open-source and we’ll be targeting to create a platform for developers to build their own applications on top of this platform to allow for more efficient analysis of the data.
“Now, in addition to that, we will hope to engage the community of SETI@home, that is about nine million people, to be able to process this vast amount of data that we’ll be collecting.”
SM: Audio from today’s announcement and press conference at the Royal Society in London, featuring Stephen Hawking, Frank Drake of the Drake Equation for estimating advanced civilizations in the universe, and other prominent researchers, will be available later today as a Scientific American Science Talk podcast.
疑难词汇：
Entrepreneur n. 企业家;承包人;主办者
Extraterrestrial adj. 地球外的n. 天外来客
Telescopes n. [光] 望远镜(telescope的复数)vt. 缩短(telescope的第三人称单数
Steerable adj. 易驾驶的;可操纵的;易改变位置的
Optical adj. 光学的;眼睛的，视觉的
Platform n. 平台;月台，站台;坛;讲台
Prominent adj. 突出的，显著的;杰出的;卓越的
长难句解析：
1.This is the day [46th anniversary] of the Apollo [11] landing on the moon—we’re announcing a Breakthrough Listen Project, which is designed to be the most comprehensive and significant search for extraterrestrial intelligence so far.”
难句类型：
which引导的非限制性定语从句
句子主干：
This is the day
难句拆分：
This is the day [46th anniversary] of the Apollo [11] landing on the moon ，landing on the moon作the Apollo [11]的定语，we’re announcing a Breakthrough Listen Project解释说明moon;which is designed to be the most comprehensive and significant search for extraterrestrial intelligence so far，which引导的非限制性定语从句修饰Project.
2. Well, the idea is really to combine the best of what Silicon Valley can offer with the access to the best telescopes in the world to create an environment where all the data will be made available to the scientists and the public.
难句类型：
what 引导的名词性从句+where引导的定语从句
句子主干：
the idea is really to combine the best with the access to the best telescopes
难句拆分：
that I thought would cost me my career，that引导的定语从句，作something的定语;What Silicon Valley can offer with the access to the best telescopes in the world to create an environment，what 引导的名词性从句;where all the data will be made available to the scientists and the public，where引导的定语从句，修饰environment.
文本结构特点：
本篇文章主要讲的是太空中是否有像地球一样的星球，科学家们经过研究，发现有的望远镜是可以帮助我们搜集数据，来找出证据证明我们是否是“孤寡老人”。
好了，以上就是前程百利小编为大家整理的备考托福听力背景材料以及专业词汇的学习。希望能在备考托福的路上助大家一臂之力。最后，小编祝大家在托福考试中取得好成绩!
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