Astronomer: Observations of the Shoemaker-Levi comet on its collision course with Jupiter showed that the comet broke into fragments before entering Jupiter's atmosphere in 1994, but they did not show how big those fragments were. Nevertheless, some indication of their size can be inferred from spectrographic analyses of Jupiter's outer atmosphere. After the fragments' entry, these analyses revealed unprecedented traces of sulfur. The fragments themselves almost certainly contained no sulfur, but astronomers believe that the cloud layer below Jupiter's outer atmosphere does contain sulfur. Since sulfur would have seeped into the outer atmosphere if comet fragments had penetrated this cloud layer, it is likely that some of the fragments were at least large enough to have passed through Jupiter's outer atmosphere without being burned up.
In the astronomer's argument, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?

通读全文看文章结构 全文无转折并表示支持论点 可以直接排除AE
B中第一句不是为了证明正确的claim,D中说的第二句也不是conclusion
选择C

