From tiny seeds（种子）, great discoveries grow. A mini-garden carried on China's Chang'e 4 moon lander recently became home to the first plant to grow on another world.

This is yet another success for Chang'e 4. On January 2, the probe（探测器）became the first lander to touch down on the far side of the moon. This is the unknown face of the moon that is always looking away from us, so we never see it from down here on the earth. Although it is often regarded as the dark side of the moon, the far side actually gets as much sunshine as the near side. For example, when all we can see is a silver sliver of a new moon, the far side of the moon is in full sunlight.

Part of Chang'e 4's mission（使命）is to see how a moon base could be built for humans, including exploring（探索）whether humans could grow food and other plant products there. Chang'e 4 carried a mini-garden with air, water and soil with seeds planted in it. When plants shoot on the earth, their stems grow away from the gravity（the force that keeps your feet on the ground）, and so they always shoot upwards. The moon's gravity is a sixth as strong as the earth's, so Chang'e 4's experiment was a test: would the earth plants know which way was up on the moon? Four days after landing, a tiny cotton shoot showed that they do.

Night has now fallen on the far side of the moon; sunlight will not return until the start of February. As a result, the cotton shoots died. Besides the darkness, the plants can't stand the cold（it can drop to -170℃ on the moon at night）. However, the experiment is a success, since it has proved that it is possible for plants to grow in space.

How to celebrate a big birthday with style

To mark the     24    (70) anniversary of the founding of New China, the country held a series of celebrations, including awarding (授予) 42 people with     25    (nation) medals (勋章) and honorary titles (荣誉称号), as well as a grand celebration in front of Tian’anmen     26     Oct 1.

On that day, President Xi Jinping     27    (give) a speech in Tian’anmen Square. Seventy years ago, Xi said, the Chinese people stood up to put an end to poverty and     28    (weak). “No force can ever shake the status of China, or stop the Chinese people and nation from     29    ( march )forward,” Xi said.

After the speech, a grand military parade (阅兵)     30    (hold) The parade,     31     was the biggest of its kind in recent decades, showed the     32    (develop) made by China’s armed forces in recent years. All of the military hardware(军事装备) shown at the parade was developed and produced in China. Of all the 580 weapons (武器) and equipment shown at the parade, new weapons took up 40 percent,     33    (include) DF-41 intercontinental strategic nuclear missiles (东风-41洲际战略核导弹), the ZTQ-15 light tank (ZTQ-15轻型坦克) and the H-6N bomber aircraft (轰-6N战机).

A large pageant (游行) was held later with the theme of “Jointly Building the Chinese Dream”.