Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, to gather information about its size and curvature of its surface, new observations have been made by astronomers that show with startling directness the large-scale geometry of the universe.

(A) Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, to gather information about its size and curvature of its surface, new observations have been made by astronomers

(B) Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth for gathering information about its size and also the curvature of its surface, new observations have been made by astronomers

(C) Similar to the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, where they gathered information about its size and the curvature of its surface, astronomers have made new observations

(D) Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth gathering information about its size and the curvature of its surface, astronomers have made new observations

(E) Just as with the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, gathering information about its size and curvature of the surface, astronomers have made new

答案是D

我的问题是，D 里的 Gathering  是什么样的用法？

similar to 和like的用法？？？？

我觉得 gathering...是伴随状语，修饰动词 sailed...

不过这道题的考点不是 gathering... 将gathering...的伴随状语省略，对比名词 ...navigators 以及句子意思不受影响。