Living on another planet

Thousands of years of astronomy spent wondering about potentially(潛在) habitable(可居住) planets(行星) in the universe(宇宙) and then 64 billion come along at once.

The discovery of new planets has in recent years become commonplace(屢見不鮮) but most have been spotted(看到, 斑) by looking at changes in the light of their bright stars(恆星). Now we have a view into the smaller, darker red dwarfs(紅矮星) that make up 80 percent of stars in our galaxy(銀河系).

The HARPS team peered(盯著) at a representative sample of stars estimating that 40% of the 160 billion red dwarfs in our galaxy has a super-Earth circling in the Goldilocks or habitable zone; that's where the temperature is just right for liquid(液態) water.

Astronomers are getting better at spotting smaller planets close to Earth's size and it seems that everywhere they look and in every way they look, planets abound(生產, 豐富). There's still a long way to go to determine(確定) whether any of them has conditions suitable(合適的) for life and a long way again to search for life itself.

But with billions of kitchens in which the ingredients(成分) of life might come together, it's ever more difficult to doubt that the recipe has been tried elsewhere(別處).

this report is from bbc learning english

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/2012/03/120330_witn_another_planet.shtml