Question

Read the sentences from the passage.

"First, they rolled in one by one, those newly discovered planets, like billiard balls pushed across a table . . . But when discoveries of exoplanets began to flow from space-based telescopes, it was like a pool player making a big, smashing break. The billiard balls raced across the table in bunches."

How does the author's use of simile help communicate the main idea of the passage?
A. It helps the reader understand the importance of discovering new exoplanets.
B. It helps the reader visualize the increased number of exoplanets discovered.
C. It stimulates the reader's imagination by describing a series of exciting events.
D. It holds the reader's attention by calling to mind a game that is fun to play.

excerpt adapted from Exoplanet in the Corner Pocket
by Pat Brennan

First, they rolled in one by one, those newly discovered planets, like billiard balls pushed across a table.
Counting them was easy.
Then, they came in handfuls, still quite manageable, as ground-based observatories began to pile up their discoveries of exoplanets (planets outside our solar system). In the 1990s and early 2000s, astronomers had no trouble keeping a running tally.
But when discoveries of exoplanets began to flow from space-based telescopes, it was like a pool player making a big, smashing break. The billiard balls raced across the table in bunches. In just a few years, scientists were racking up an inordinate number of new planets, accumulating them by the thousands.
And it wasn't just the number, but the types of planets that had to be accounted for—"hot Jupiters"; gas giants; rocky, Earth-sized worlds; and "super Earths." There were also hints of potentially frozen, scalding, lava-choked, icy, steamy, or watery planets.
NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute, keepers of the NASA Exoplanet Archive, set up automated counters of exoplanet discoveries, which were always-running, online dashboards that tracked the number and variety of them. The latest totals: some 3,700 confirmed exoplanets in our galaxy, with thousands more candidate planets that remain unconfirmed.
But now, after piling up two decades worth of exoplanet discoveries, NASA scientists have begun a wholesale reshuffling of their counting methods.
At first, this means a drop in the number of "candidate" planets, with roughly half moving to the "confirmed" category. These planets were already confirmed but were being double counted: The previous number on the counter, 4,496, was labeled "candidates," but critically, it included the combined total of confirmed and unconfirmed exoplanets, and only from NASA's Kepler space telescope observations from 2009 to 2013.
In the new counter, only "unconfirmed" planets are labeled as "candidates." The count also pulls in other NASA mission discoveries, including Kepler's more recent observations and future exoplanet finds. That means the initial candidate total drops to 2,724.
But the decrease in candidates is temporary. Once the next torrent is unleashed—exoplanet discoveries from the just-launched Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), likely to begin to flow in early 2019—planetary candidates are expected to soar into the tens of thousands!

Answer 1

Answer: it helps the reader visualize the increased number of exoplanets discovered

Step-by-step explanation:

Answer 2

The author's use of simile:

B. It helps the reader visualize the increased number of exoplanets discovered.

Step-by-step explanation:

A simile is a figure of speech used with the intention of making a comparison - stating a similarity - between two different things. A simile needs help of words such as "as" or "like".

In the text, the discovery of planets and exoplanets was compared to billiard balls in a pool game. First, discovering planets was similar to a regular game, in which it is easy to see and count the balls. But, as more and more exoplanets were discovered, scientists could no longer run tally. That is why it was like a pool player making a big, smashing break: planets, like the billiard balls, were everywhere. The text moves on the describe it as an "inordinate number". Therefore, we can say safely say the simile is being used to help the reader visualize the increased number of exoplanets discovered.