Reading & Listening Comprehension Exercises for ESL 11th Graders : Reading & Listening Comprehension Exercises for ESL 11th Graders About the Newly-researched Exoplanet: Gliese 581 g
Explanatory Notes before Reading-Source: Wikipedia : Explanatory Notes before Reading-Source: Wikipedia Exoplanet- An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet outside the Solar System.
Light Year- A light-year, also light year or lightyear, (symbol: ly) is a unit of length, equal to just under 10 trillion kilometres (1016 metres, 10 petametres or 6 trillion miles). As defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a light-year is the distance that light travels in a vacuum in 365 days.
Orion Nebula- the Nebula is in fact part of a much larger nebula that is known as the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex
Slide 3 : Goldilocks Zone- The term "Goldilocks zone" is often used in popular writing as a nickname for the Habitable zone.The term comes from the children's fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and is used to describe conditions that are not too hot nor too cold for life as we know it.
Quotation from Goldilocks and the Three Bears (fairy-tale)
"OUCH!" she cried, dropping the spoon. "That
porridge is MUCH too hot!"
She tasted the porridge in the medium-size
bowl. But that porridge was MUCH too cold.
Then she tasted the porridge in the tiny little
bowl. "Mmmmmm," she said. "This porridge
is JUST right!" so she ate it all up!
The Gliese 581 g Discoverers (2 people here) – pictures from worldiq.com and sciencebuddies.org: Steven Vogt the University of California, Santa Cruz Paul Butler the Carnegie Institution of Washington and many other co-discoverers : The Gliese 581 g Discoverers (2 people here) – pictures from worldiq.com and sciencebuddies.org: Steven Vogt the University of California, Santa Cruz Paul Butler the Carnegie Institution of Washington and many other co-discoverers
The Reading Exercise: The Goldilocks Exoplanet : The Reading Exercise: The Goldilocks Exoplanet Gliese 581g may look like it should rhyme with "Grease," but it is actually pronounced as two-syllables as (Glee-zuh). The name comes from the German astronomer Wilhelm Gliese, who catalogued the planet's parent star Gleise 581 as part of a star survey first published in 1957.
The planet Gliese 581g orbits the red dwarf star Gliese 581, which sits 20 light-years from Earth in the constellation Libra. One light-year is about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km).
A planet within the Goldilocks zone does not have a guaranteed chance of originating life, because biology also depends upon the planet's size and a host of conditions, including chemical makeup. But what little researchers know about Gliese 581g makes it a highly promising candidate.
The planet is lumped into the "nearly Earth-sized" category. It is between three and four times the mass of our Earth — bigger, but small enough to be rocky rather than gaseous. Its radius is anywhere between 1.3 and two times the size of Earth.
An Earth-sized planet with three times the mass of our planet would pull down on your body with three times the force of Earth's standard gravity.
Slide 6 : That means if you weighed 120 pounds on Earth, you would weigh about 120 x 3 pounds on an Earth-sized planet with three times the mass, or 360 pounds.But Gliese 581g also has a somewhat larger radius, so that also factors into the equation. A 120 pound person would weigh about 213 pounds on Gliese 581g at the lower end of the size and mass estimates. This all remains theoretical until astronomers can pin down the actual size and mass.
One of the planet's discoverers, astronomer Steven Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz, pointed out that "it's pretty hard to imagine that water wouldn't be there." He likened it to the examples of the Earth, its moon, Mars, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. He also noted that the Orion Nebula is making enough water every 24 seconds to fill all the oceans of the Earth.
The planet is tidally locked to its star. That means one side experiences eternal daylight, and the other side experiences unending darkness.
A spaceship traveling at a one-tenth of the speed of light would reach Gliese 581g within about 220 years, Vogt said. That would allow the spaceship to begin getting close-up pictures and a sense of the planet's atmosphere.
Slide 7 : That time scale is not promising for existing human lifespans, but robotic explorers could more easily take up the challenge. However, the fastest spaceships built so far don't come anywhere near even that one-tenth light-speed mark.
Any discussion about alien life on Gliese 581g is purely speculative at this point, according to co-discoverer Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, in Washington, D.C.
Butler took a more cautionary approach as opposed to Vogt, who said his gut feeling told him "the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent.“
We don't have evidence of aliens on the planet yet. But assuming they exist, aliens could spot our own sun as star in their sky without requiring any telescopes or binoculars. If the alien astronomers had our current level of technology, they would be also able to easily detect Neptune, and possibly Jupiter and Saturn.
Questions to the Text : Questions to the Text How is the Gliese 581g’s name pronounced and where does the name come from? Who catalogued Gliese 581g’s parent star and when?
According to the text: is an “Earth-sized” object always equal to the Earth’s size? How much is the exoplanet’s gravity force bigger than our planet’s one? If a 120-pound (54,36 kg) person is on it, how much will he/she weigh there: 360 or 213 pounds?
Is it expected that there is water and by which Nebula could it be provided?
Is it more suitable: a human to take pictures of the exoplanet’s surface or a robot if they travel at velocity one-tenth of the light speed? Why?
What can those aliens (if there are such) know about us if they have the same observation technology like ours?
Note the text is taken from: A Million Questions About Habitable Planet Gliese 581g (Okay, 12) By Jeremy HsuSPACE.com
Questions to the Text : Questions to the Text How to find the answer to question 2:
According to the law of universal gravitation, the attractive force (F) between two bodies is proportional to the product of their masses (m1 and m2), and inversely proportional to the square of the distance (r) between them
Vocabulary Connected with the Text : Vocabulary Connected with the Text Find in paragraph.. and explain:
“lumped”
“pull down on your body”
“pin down”
“close-up pictures”
“He likened it to”
“lifespan”
“take up the challenge”
“his gut feeling”
“cautionary”
Note the text is taken from: A Million Questions About Habitable Planet Gliese 581g (Okay, 12) By Jeremy HsuSPACE.com
The Listening Exercise : The Listening Exercise Go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqhkfIrJ_Ic&feature=player_embedded#!
Then answer:
What is the opposite of “habitable” (the right answer: uninhabitable)
How big is the exoplanet’s star’s mass compared to our sun’s one?
How long does the exoplanet orbit around its sun?
Is it terribly hot on the exoplanet?
The Listening Exercise : The Listening Exercise What is “effective temperature” (the last scientist mention it)? Explanation from Wikipedia: The effective temperature of a star is the temperature of a black body with the same luminosity per surface area as the star and is defined according to the Stefan–Boltzmann law
Is the calculation of the exoplanet’s effective temperature needed to make sure if there is water on the exoplanet - what did the last scientist say?