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阅读理解

　　WASHINGTON(AP)－Astronomers believe they’ve found the oldest thing they’ve ever seen in the universe：It’s a galaxy(星系)far, far away from a time long, long ago．

　　Hidden in a Hubble Space Telescope photo released earlier this year is a small point of light that European astronomers now calculate is a galaxy from 13．1 billion years ago．That’s a time when the universe was very young, just about 600 million years old．That would make it the earliest and most distant galaxy seen so far．

　　By now the galaxy is so ancient it probably doesn’t exist in its earlier form and has already changed into bigger neighbors, said Matthew Lehnert of the Paris Observatory, lead author of the study published online Wednesday in the journal Nature．

　　“We are looking at the universe when it was a 20th of its current age,” said California Institute of Technology astronomy professor Richard Ellis, who wasn’t part of the discovery team．“In human terms, we’re looking at a 4-year-old boy in the lifetime of an adult．”

　　While Ellis finds the basis for the study “pretty good”, there have been other claims about the age of distant space objects that have not held up to careful examination．And some experts have questions about this one．But even the doubters praised the study as important and interesting．

　　The European astronomers calculated the age after 16 hours of observations from a telescope in Chile that looked at light signatures of cooling hydrogen gas．

　　Earlier this year, astronomers had made a general estimate of 600 to 800 million years after the Big Bang(宇宙大爆炸)for the most distant unclear points of light in the Hubble photograph, which was presented at an astronomy meeting back in January．

　　In the new study, researchers focused on a single galaxy in their analysis of hydrogen’s light signature, further finding out the age．Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was the scientist behind the Hubble image, said it provided confirmation for the age using a different method, something he called amazing “for such faint objects”．

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　　People are talking about the “new economy”．It's very different from the “old economy”．

　　In the old economy, people travel to work．They buy things in stores．They use the post office, the fax and the telephone to send information．They see people face to face at their jobs or in stores．People get information from newspapers, radio, television, books and libraries．

　　In the new economy, people do business through the “Net”, which is a connection of millions of computers everywhere in the world．In the new economy, workers often work at home．They can get information on line．They can communicate with employers and co-workers by e-mail．Businesses have “virtual (虚拟的) stores”．They are web sites on which customers can see the products．Businesses can sell to customers anywhere in the world．

　　In the new economy, people live a fast-paced, convenient and colorful life．The whole world develops more quickly than before．But the new economy is a double edge sword(双刃剑)．Its disadvantage is also obvious．For example, the Internet has led to a huge increase in credit card(信用卡)cheating．Some illegal websites offer some cheap or banned(禁止的)goods or services．On-line shoppers who enter their credit card information may never receive the goods they want to buy and their card information could even be for sale in an illegal website．So people in the new economy should be smarter and more knowledgeable．

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