【推荐1】In the waves of human exploration into space, our brave Chinese people have never stopped the pace of advancing. In just half a century, China has made remarkable space exploration success. After landing probes (探测器) on the lunar and Martian surfaces, China has begun to set its exploratory sights on the core of our solar system — the sun.

Named Xihe after the sun goddess in ancient Chinese mythology, the 500-kilogram Chinese H-Alpha Solar Explorer satellite was launched on Oct. 14 from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Shanxi province.

The spacecraft is China’s first space-based solar telescope and is designed to work for at least three years, Wang Wei, project manager of the satellite, told China Daily.

The H-alpha band is one of the best spectral (光谱的) lines to study solar activity, according to the Global Times. “The instrument is able to observe and record changes in the sun’s physical elements like its temperature and speed, facilitating scientists’ studies about the dynamics and physics during a solar eruption,” Wang told China Daily.

Several Chinese satellites, such as the Fengyun 3E meteorological satellite, have carried equipment that can collect solar data, but Xihe is the first one intended for solar observation.

“Since solar activity has many effects on life on Earth, it is important for mankind to study the sun,” Zhao Jian, a senior official at the China National Space Administration, told China Daily.

Since the 1960s, NASA has sent dozens of solar orbiters to circle the sun, and in 2004, the Genesis spacecraft returned a sample of solar wind. The most recently launched solar mission was Parker Solar Probe in 2018. Europe and Japan also have solar missions, according to the South China Morning Post.

“Our country is ranked No. 2 in the world in terms of published research papers on solar observations, but all of the satellite-generated data used by our scientists are from foreign spacecraft,” Zhao told China Daily. “Xihe will put an end to the dependence on foreign satellites, and we will share its products with researchers around the world.”

【推荐2】Mars is truly a fascinating planet for those of us here on Earth.     1     It is about half as big as Earth and is often referred to as the Red Planet because of its red surface.

The Red Planet has the largest volcano in the solar system-Olympus Mons.     2     That’s about three times the height of Mount Qomolangma.

Mars also has an atmosphere, but it is very thin and made up mostly of carbon dioxide. Because of its thin atmosphere and greater distance from the Sun, Mars is much colder than Earth.     3     The dust storms of Mars can grow so big that sometimes they blanket the entire planet and last for months. The poles on Mars are a lot like Antarctica, capped by ice, but much of Mars’s ice is made from carbon dioxide, not water.

Scientists believe that studying Mars can help answer some of the key questions about our planet Earth, or even the universe.

    4     Since 1960, more than half of all attempted Mars missions have failed. The USA, Russia, the European Space Agency, and several other countries have lost many spacecraft in their quest to explore the Red Planet. Nevertheless, they will still continue their explorations. Chinese experts are confident about their plan to explore Mars, in spite of the many challenges. The first Mars unmanned spacecraft was launched from Wenchang around 2020. But it is only the beginning of deep voyages into outer space.     5    

【推荐3】China’s space medicine experts have started planning to set up a “space hospital” to serve astronauts, according to Du Jichen, a leading scientist and president of the Aerospace Center Hospital in Beijing.

“We are carrying out extensive research, experiments and tests on the ground to advance the first work on a space hospital that can be fixed inside a manned spacecraft like our space station. The purpose of this project is that it will enable our space explorers to travel deeper and stay healthy during their journey,” said Du.

“The research, design and construction of such a space-based clinic will also help to lead the development of our country’s medical technology and hardware, thus promoting the entire medical and healthcare sectors,” Du said. Chinese space medicine experts have been discussing a sustainable approach to keep astronauts fit and treat possible health conditions in lengthy spaceflights.

“A mainstream idea is that we can place a small ‘medical complex’ inside the space station or other spacecraft that can meet the basic needs of diagnosis and treatment,” the scientist said.

Du said that with the medical facility, astronauts will be able to use self-examination instruments to make a diagnosis if they do not feel well, and then can take timely medical measures. Currently, medical support for astronauts mostly relies on doctors on the ground.

The biggest challenge in this program is that engineers must figure out how to pack medical devices into a very limited space, Du said, adding that they need to upgrade current technologies and use interdisciplinary (跨学科) teamwork to achieve this goal. Medical scientists and engineers have conducted a great deal of research to prepare Chinese astronauts for the missions, Du said.

They have focused on the impact on astronauts’ health during long-term space missions, as well as investigating how the special environment inside the space station, especially its weightlessness, will affect astronauts’ health, particularly their cerebral functions.

【推荐1】In the early 1870s, Mark Twain was on his way to becoming the world’s most famous writer and humorist. Meanwhile, the tools of writing were undergoing a profound transformation — from fountain pens to typewriters. Like any other new technology, the new writing machine did not perform well enough at first. But when Twain laid eyes on a Remington in a Boston store window, its salesman claimed that the writing tool was quite reliable.

The salesman began to explain it to Twain and his friend. “He showed us samples of its work,” Twain later recalled, “and said it could do fifty-seven words a minute — a statement which we frankly confessed that we did not believe. So he put his type-girl to work, and we timed her by the watch. She actually did the fifty-seven in sixty seconds. We were partly convinced.” They timed the girl over and over again — with the same result always. Twain bought it on the spot at the price of $125.

And he recognized its usefulness almost immediately. In a letter he typed to his brother, Twain wrote: “The machine has several virtues. I believe it will print faster than I can write. One may lean back in his chair & work it. It piles an awful stack of words on one page. It doesn’t untidy things. Of course it saves paper.”

But Twain fell out of love rather swiftly. After a year or two, he found it was damaging his character. He found the machine to be “full of faults — unbearable ones,” he later wrote. Then he gave his machine to his writer pal William Dean Howells. “My morals began to improve,” Twain said.

However, Howells sent the machine back to him after just six months. “I gave it away twice after that,” Twain said, “but it wouldn’t stay,” Trying to get rid of it completely, he settled on a coachman (someone driving a coach pulled by horses) who “was very grateful, because he did not know the animal, and thought I was trying to make him wiser and better.” The coachman eventually traded it to another person.

But Twain would ultimately come back to the uncontrollable creature. His 1883 book, Life on the Mississippi, was the first literary work to be completed on the machine.