Alien research

No aliens have been found yet, but a universe is a large place. Astronomers have found thousands of planets orbiting stars, some thousands of lightyears away. There may be billions of more worlds still to be discovered, with a lot of potential planets with aliens. There may be aliens that cannot read or send messages at all, but some planets are likely to be home to simple, microscopic life forms. To find this world, astronomers look for the so-called habitable zone, which is the area around a star where a planet would be just warm enough to have liquid water. As we know it, water is essential for all known life forms.

The majority of research regarding extraterrestrial life has been done through the use of radio telescopes. These very special telescopes detect waves that occur in the electromagnetic spectrum. As the human eye cannot see radio waves, we have to rely on these machines to receive energy waves. These low energy radio waves are emitted by many cosmic sources such as planets and stars. Two of the biggest telescopes participating in alien research are the Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico and the Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, Australia. 

Are we alone? 

The desire to know our place in the universe, and to learn if there is any other life form on other planets have been at the core of human curiosity. People have wondered about the answer for thousands of years, predating the birth of Christ, ancient Greek philosophers speculated that the cosmos might have other planets that support life. 

Humans couldn’t move beyond speculation for a long time until telescopes were invented. The so-called “cosmic pluralism” theory posed by Greek philosophers didn’t take off, as other heavyweight thinkers like Plato and Aristotle held that the Earth is unique. This aligned nicely with the Christian belief, so for a long time, it was downright dangerous to even hypothesize about the existence of life outside of our world. This however changed in the 16th century with the dawn of the Copernican Revolution. Once it was realised that all the planets go around the Sun and not everything else revolves around our planet, it was not hard to imagine that other planets could be out there similar to Earth. 

Isaac Newton continued the theories and fleshed out how our solar system works. Later, in the early 18th century scientists began to think about how to communicate with our cosmic neighbours. One of the pioneers in this new field was German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss. He proposed that carving huge geometric shapes into the great fields would show Lunarians living on the Moon that we’re here. Such ideas were never carried out, but they made a baseline for a future scientist to start putting some alien-human communication into action. 

A cikk folytatását a nyomtatott havi 5 Perc Angol Magazin 2022 júliusi számában találod! 

ELŐFIZETEK A MAGAZINRA: ITT

 

a) scoffed
b) existence
c) rough
d) shifting
e) reckons
f) presence
g) rats
h) beaming
i) mysterious
j) presence
k) terrestrial
l) gruff
m) bats
n) celestial
o) shipping
p) casting

Forget NASA. Russell Crowe 1) ………. he can confirm the 2) ………. of extra- 3)………. life in our planet’s skies after spotting a 4) ………. orange light from his own Aussie backyard. The 5) ……….Oscar winner was 6) ………. at by skeptics when he tweeted out a 23-second video of the orange flash in the sky, recorded from his office window near his Woolloomooloo home in Sydney. The 7) ………. light could be seen 8) ……….across the city’s Royal Botanic Gardens, 9) ………. down an orange spotlight on the ground as it moved. The 48-year-old tweeted: ‘A friend and I set camera to capture fruit 10) ………. rising from Botanic Gardens, this was a big surprise.’‘

Answers: 1) e, 2) f, 3) k, 4) h, 5) l, 6) a, 7) i, 8) d, 9) p, 10) m

Decide what the underlined word means in each sentence.

1) Russell Crowe reckons he can confirm the presence of extra-terrestrial life in our planet’s skies.
a) thinks
b) suggests
c) says

2) The gruff Oscar winner was scoffed at by skeptics when he tweeted out a 23-second video of the orange flash in the sky.
a) criticized
b) attacked
c) mocked

3) The mysterious light could be seen shifting across the city’s Royal Botanic Gardens.
a) moving
b) floating
c) speeding

4) ‘A friend and I set camera to capture fruit bats rising from Botanic Gardens, this was a big surprise.’‘
a) catch
b) film
c) trap

5) Just raw footage would have made it viral.
a) infectious
b) addictive
c) spread rapidly

Answers: 1) a, 2) c, 3) a, 4) b, 5) c

Decide if the statements are TRUE or FALSE.

1) Russell Crowe believes he can prove there is alien presence in the skies. T/F
2) Crowe’s video shows an orange light blinking in the sky. T/F
3) He captured the alien light from the backyard of his home. T/F
4) Few twitter users believed his tweet. T/F
5) There are other celebrities who share his belief that aliens exist. T/F

Answers: 1) T, 2) F, 3) F, 4) T, 5) T

Match the underlined words to their synonyms.

1) Russ is not the only celeb to crow about aliens.
2) Robbie Williams will happily back up his findings.
3) ‘Seriously, I want to go out and investigate these things.
4) I’m stopping being a pop star and being a full-time ufologist,’ the singer has said in the past after spotting an unidentified object.
5) The 39-year-old singer said at the time it was ‘about 300 foot above me, there was this square thing which just passed over my head silently and then shot off.’

a) support
b) talk boastingly
c) not known or recognized
d) leave quickly
e) examine

Answers: 1) b, 2) a, 3) e, 4) c, 5) d

Forget NASA. Russell Crowe reckons he can confirm the presence of extra-terrestrial life in our planet’s skies after spotting a beaming orange light from his own Aussie backyard. The gruff Oscar winner was scoffed at by sceptics when he tweeted out a 23-second video of the orange flash in the sky, recorded from his office window near his Woolloomooloo home in Sydney.The mysterious light could be seen shifting across the city’s Royal Botanic Gardens, casting down an orange spotlight on the ground as it moved.The 48-year-old tweeted: ‘A friend and I set camera to capture fruit bats rising from Botanic Gardens, this was a big surprise.’‘

‘Canon 5D, No Flash, can’t be a lense flare because it moves, camera is fixed,’ he added.One user wrote: ‘Just an insect or some such reflecting the light on the other side of the trees into your time lapse camera.’Another scoffed: ‘Come on RC. It could have been more believable without all the editing. Just raw footage would have made it viral. Anyways, loved you in Les Mis.’But Russ hit back: ‘I will grant you at the time the music wasn’t playing, also, yes, we have pushed in on the frame..this is 3 photo’s in order, nothing added.’Other more loyal fans rushed to his defence. One tweeted: ‘Without imagination mankind would not have evolved.‘If it makes Russell happy, let him believe it is a UFO and not some light interference. Be kind people, be kind.

Russ is not the only celeb to crow about aliens. Robbie Williams will happily back up his findings.‘Seriously, I want to go out and investigate these things. I’m stopping being a pop star and being a full-time ufologist,’ the singer has said in the past after spotting an unidentified object from his sun lounger at the Beverly Hills Hotel.The 39-year-old singer said at the time it was ‘about 300 foot above me, there was this square thing which just passed over my head silently and then shot off.’

source: metro.co.uk

to forget – elfelejteni
to reckon – vélni 
to confirm – igazolni, alátámasztani
presence – jelenlét
extra-terrestrial  – földönkívüli
to spot – észrevenni, megpillantani
beaming – sugárzó, ragyogó
gruff – nyers, mogorva, rekedtes
to scoff – csipkelődni, kötekedni
mysterious – titokzatos, rejtélyes
to shift – elmozdulni
to cast down – lebocsájtani, levetíteni
to set – (be)állítani
to capture – (itt: lencsevégre) kapni
bat – denevér
to rise – emelkedni
lense flare – bevillanás, becsillanás
to reflect – tükrözni
believable – hihető
to edit – (meg)szerkeszteni
raw footage – nyers filmfelvétel
viral – (a neten) elterjedt 
to hit back – visszavágni/ütni
frame – keret
loyal – hű(séges)
to rush to someone’s defence – valaki védelmére sietni
imagination – képzelet
mankind – emberiség
to evolve – fejlődni
interference – beavatkozás, zavaró hatás
to crow – ujjongani
to back up – alátámasztani
findings – ténymegállapítások, felfedezés
to investigate – vizsgálni, kutatni, nyomozni
unidentified – azonsoítatlan
to shoot off – eliramodni, kilőni