2. Read the words from the text, make stress on the right syllable.

technique	sun
study	usually
universe	equal
structure	cloudy
understand	orbit

Text stars and galaxies

The techniques and ideas of physics to study the heavens is often called as astrophysics. At the base of present theory of the Universe (Einstein's general theory of relativity) - for in the large-scale structure of the Universe, gravity is the dominant force. General relativity serves also as the foundation for modern cosmology, which is the study of the Universe as a whole. Cosmology deals especially with the search for a theoretical framework to understand the observed Universe, its origin, and its future. The questions posed by cosmology are complex and difficult; the possible answers are often unimaginable. They are questions like "Has the Universe always existed, or did it have a beginning in time?”

According to the ancients, the stars, except for the few that seemed to move (the planets), were fixed on a sphere beyond the last planet. The Universe was nearly self-contained, and we on Earth were at or near its center. But in the centuries following Galileo's first telescopic observations of the heavens in 1610, our view of the Universe has changed dramatically. We no longer place ourselves at the center, and we view the Universe as vastly larger.

For specifying distances to the Sun and Moon, we usually use meters or kilometers, but we could specify them in terms of light. The Earth-Moon distance is 384,000 km, which is 1.28 light-seconds. The most distant planet in the solar system is Pluto. The nearest star to us, other than the Sun, is Proxima Centauri, about 4.3 ly away.

On a clear moonless night, thousands of stars of varying degrees of brightness can be seen, as well as the elongated cloudy stripe known as the Milky Way. It was Galileo who first observed, about 1610, that the Milky Way is comprised of countless individual stars. A century and a half later (about 1750), Thomas Wright suggested that the Milky Way was a flat disc of stars extending to great distances in a plane, which we call the Galaxy (Greek for "milky way").

We can see by telescope, in addition to stars both within and outside the Milky Way, many faint cloudy patches in the sky, which were all referred to once as "nebulae" (Latin for "clouds"). A few of these, such as those in the constellations Andromeda and Orion, can actually be discerned with the naked eye on a clear night.

Notes to the text:

1. heaven	небо
2. theory of relativity	теорія відносності
3. distance	відстань
4. unimaginable	неймовірний
5. observation	спостереження
6. to specify them in terms of the time	визначати їх з точки зору часу
7. sun and moon	сонце і місяць
8. moonless night	безмісячна ніч
9. brightness	яскравість
10. Milky Way	Чумацький шлях
11. countless individual stars	незчисленну кількість окремих зірок
12. faint cloudy patches	прозорі уривки хмаринок
13. constellation	сузір’я