In addition to conventional galaxies, the universe contains very dim galaxies that untilrecently went unnoticed by astronomers. Possibly as numerous as conventional galaxies, these galaxies have the same general shape and even the same approximate number of stars as a common type of conventional galaxy, the spiral, but tend to be much larger. Because these galaxies' mass is spread out over larger areas, they have far fewer stars per unit volume than do conventional galaxies. Apparently these low-surface-brightness galaxies, as they are called, take much longer than conventional galaxies to condense their primordial gas and convert it to stars—that is, they evolve much more slowly.

These galaxies may constitute an answer to the long-standing puzzle of the missing baryonic mass in the universe. Baryons—subatomic particles that are generally protons or neutrons—are the source of stellar, and therefore galactic, luminosity, and so their numbers can be estimated based on how luminous galaxies are. However, the amount of helium in the universe, as measured by spectroscopy, suggests that there are far more baryons in the universe than estimates based on galactic luminosity indicate. Astronomers have long speculated that the missing baryonic mass might eventually be discovered in intergalactic space or as some large population of galaxies that are difficult to detect.


The author of the passage would be most likely to disagree with which of the following statements?


Low-surface-brightness galaxies are more difficult to detect than are conventional galaxies.

Low-surface-brightness galaxies are often spiral in shape.

Astronomers have advanced plausible ideas about where missing baryonic mass might be found.

Astronomers have devised a useful way of estimating the total baryonic mass in the universe.

Astronomers have discovered a substantial amount of baryonic mass in intergalactic space.

考题讲解

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正确答案是 E。作者在文章中并没有确定天文学家发现大量的间星空间中的重量,而 E 选项则称天文学家 “发现” 了大量的重量,因此作者会最可能否定这一观点。

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