1. How is the show about space?
| A．Boring. | B．Exciting | C．Interesting. |
| A．The water on Mars. | B．The photos of the moon. | C．The life in space. |
Maybe many people know the universe is very big. If you stand in space, you will see many beautiful stars, like the sun and
We’re
3 . In the universe, as we know, there is the sun, the moon, the earth and many stars. Through our geography lessons, we know the earth goes around the sun, and the moon goes around the earth. We have day and night because the earth keeps turning all the time. When our part of the earth turns to the sun, it is day. When our part of the earth turns away from the sun, it is night.
Just because the moon is closer to the earth than the sun, it looks much bigger than the sun. Big things look smaller when they are farther, and small things also look bigger when they are nearer.
The sun is bright enough to give out very strong light. The moon can’t give out any light at all, but it looks quite bright too. Why? In fact, the light from the moon comes from the sun. The moon looks much bigger and brighter than the stars. But actually the stars are much bigger and brighter than the moon. They look smaller than the moon also because they are farther away from the earth.
There are still many other planets in the solar system (太阳系). All of them move round the sun. But of all these planets, only on the earth there are living things and people can only live on the earth too. At 9:00 am on October 15th, 2003, Chinese pilot Yang Liwei was sent up to space. He stayed there for 21 hours. It was the first time for Chinese to get into space.
1. When our part of the earth turns away from the sun, the other part of the earth is ______.| A．night | B．day | C．evening |
| A．the earth | B．the moon | C．the sun |
| A．On November 15th, 2003. | B．On October 16th, 2003. | C．On October 15th, 2003. |
| A．The moon goes around the earth, and it can’t give out any light at all. |
| B．The moon goes around the sun, and its light is from the sun. |
| C．The sun goes around the earth, and it can give out very strong light. |
4 . Stop reading for a minute and think about what you see when you look up at the sky on a clear night. You probably see many stars. Long long ago, farmers watched some stars to know when to plant their crops. Travelers did so to find their way in the dark.
Today stars are still important to some people. Scientists find that most stars are very big. Actually, some stars are so far away that it would take millions of years to get to them even by spaceship. Another thing we know today about stars is that some are made up of (由…组成) hot gases (气体). The gases are so hot that they send out light. If you watch a star carefully, you may notice that it twinkles (闪烁) sometimes. As you may understand, light from a star must shine through the air before you can see the star. Air is always moving, it makes light from the star move back and forth. When the light moves, it makes the star twinkle. Stars also have different colors. The colors of a star depend on how hot it is. To our surprise, the cool stars are red and the hottest stars are white.
1. Farmers watched stars to ________.| A．find their way in the dark | B．know when to plant crops |
| C．travel by spaceship | D．know more about stars |
| A．hot | B．cold | C．warm | D．cool |
| A．向左 | B．向右 | C．向前 | D．向后 |
| A．Its light travels through the moving air. | B．Its light is too bright. |
| C．It is made up of hot gases. | D．It is too dark. |
| A．Today stars are not important to people at all. |
| B．It takes us a short time to get to the stars by spaceship. |
| C．You can see the star before it shines through the air. |
| D．Not all stars are made up of hot gases. |
5 . Astronauts go on spacewalks for many reasons. Spacewalks let astronauts work outside their spaceship while still in space. Astronauts can do science experiments on a spacewalk. Experiments can be placed on the outside of a spaceship. This lets scientists learn how being in space influences different things. Spacewalks also let astronauts repair satellites or spaceship that are in space. By going on spacewalks, astronauts can fix things instead of bringing them back to Earth to fix.
When astronauts go on spacewalks, they wear spacesuits to keep themselves safe. Inside spacesuits, astronauts have the oxygen（氧气）they need to breathe. They have the water they need to drink.
Astronauts put on their spacesuits several hours before a spacewalk. They leave the spaceship through a special door called an airlock. The airlock has two doors. When astronauts get ready to go on a spacewalk, they go through the first door and lock it tight behind them. They can then open the second door without any air getting out of the spaceship. After the spacewalk, astronauts go back inside through the airlock.
When on a spacewalk, astronauts use safety tethers to stay close to their spaceship. One end is tied to the spacewalker. The other end is connected to the spaceship. The safety tethers keep astronauts from flying away into space.
1. What is one kind of important work that astronauts do during spacewalks?| A．Watching the earth from the space. | B．Wearing spacesuits to keep warm. |
| C．Making repairs to objects. | D．Doing tests on their bodies. |
①lock the first door tight ②put on their spacesuits
③go through the first door ④open the second door
| A．②④③① | B．①②③④ | C．②③①④ | D．③①②④ |
| A．绳；链 | B．工具 | C．措施 | D．头盔 |
| A．Astronauts wear spacesuits to breathe and move in space. |
| B．Astronauts need special machines to study other space. |
| C．Astronauts do important experiments in space. |
| D．Astronauts have special tools to stay safe and work in space. |
Scientists think that there has been life on the earth for hundreds of millions of years. However, we have not found life on any other planets yet.
The earth is a planet and it goes around the sun, which is a star. Seven other planets also go around the sun. None of them has an environment like that of the earth, so scientists do not think they will find people and things on them. The sun and its planets are called the solar system (太阳系). The solar system is a small part of our galaxy (星系). There are billions of stars in the Galaxy, and our sun is only one of them.
Scientists have also discovered many other galaxies in the universe (宇宙). They are very far away and their light has to travel for many years to reach us. So how large is the universe? It is impossible to imagine.
Scientists have sent spaceships to the planet Mars (火星) to take photos. They have even sent spaceships to travel outside the solar system. However, no spaceship has travelled far enough to reach other stars in our Galaxy.
Scientists have always asked questions: with so many stars in the universe, are we alone, or is there life out there in space? Have there been visitors to the earth from other planets? Why has no one communicated with us? We do not know the answers… yet.
根据短文内容，判断下列句子正误。正确的用“A”表示，不正确的用“B”表示。
1. There are eight planets in the solar system.
2. There is more than one galaxy in the solar system.
3. The light from the stars in other galaxies has to travel for a long time to reach the earth.
4. Spaceships have visited most of the universe.
5. Scientists have received many messages from space.
| night but bigger any to |
The moon looks
Now people know quite a lot about the moon. There is no air or water on the moon, so there are not
8 . Is there intelligent life(智能生命) on other planets(行星)? For years, scientists said “no” or “we don't know”. But today this is changing. Seth Shostak and Alexandra Barnett are astronomers(天文学家). They believe intelligent life exists(存在) somewhere in the universe(宇宙). They also think we still soon communicate with these beings(生物).
Why do Shostak and Barnett think intelligent life exists on other planets? The first reason is time. Scientists believe the universe is about 12 billion years old. “This is long enough for other planets to have intelligent life,” say Shostak and Barnett. The second reason is size — the universe is huge. “Tools like the Hubble Telescope(哈勃望远镜) have shown that there are at least 100 billion galaxies(星系),” says Shostak. “And our galaxy, the Milky Way, has at least 100 billion stars. Some planets going around these stars might be similar to Earth.”
In the past, it was hard to look for signs of intelligent life in the universe. But now, powerful telescopes allow scientists to discover smaller planets — the size of Mars or Earth — in other solar systems. These planets might have intelligent life.
Have beings from space already visited Earth? “Probably not,” says Shostak. “It’s a long way away. However, intelligent beings may contact(联系) us in other way, such as radio signals. In fact, they may be trying to communicate with us now, but we don’t have the right tools to receive their messages. However, this is changing. By 2025, we could make contact with other life forms in our universe and we might help each other.”
1. Paragraph 2 mainly talks about (that)_____________.| A．the Milky Way is our Galaxy |
| B．the Earth has a long age and huge size |
| C．the Earth is the only planet with intelligent life |
| D．why intelligent life exists in the universe |
| A．The astronomers were not interested in it. |
| B．The Milky Way didn’t exist at that time. |
| C．Scientists were not allowed to discover planets. |
| D．There were not any powerful telescopes. |
| A．Messages. | B．Radio signals. |
| C．Smart astronomers. | D．Intelligent beings. |
| A．answering a question | B．listing reasons |
| C．telling a story | D．giving examples |
After spending years searching for a planet with life, scientists may have found one. In September 2010, a team of US scientists discovered an Earth-sized planet called Gliese 581g. It has a surface temperature neither too hot nor too cold for liquid（液态）water. Scientists think there is a chance that the planet could have life.The planet Gliese 581g goes around a star called Gliese 581, which is about 20 light-years from Earth. That is about 194 trillion（万亿）kilometres －500 million times farther away from us than the moon.
A spacecraft traveling at a one-tenth of the speed of light would reach Gliese 581g within about 220 years. A human can’t live that long, but robotic explorers could make the job easier. However, our fastest spacecraft don’t come anywhere near that one-tenth light-speed mark.
At present, scientists don’t know what the surface might be like on Gliese 581g. What they know is that the planet is at the sight distance from its star to have liquid water. It’s also at the right distance to have an atmosphere that could protect the water if it is on the surface.
Although spacecraft won’t be getting there anytime soon, one way to look for life on Gliese 581g is to turn our radio telescopes（望远镜）towards the planet and search for radiation（放射）. By studying the radiation, scientists would find out about the chemicals（化学物质）around the planet and discover it Gliese 581g has an atmosphere. If it has one, studying the atmosphere would give us a good idea if the planet has life or not. But it’ll probably be many years before we can do this properly.
People have been arguing about whether there is alien life on Gliese 581g. Any discussion about alien life is just guessing at this point, according to its discoverers.
1. What did scientists find in September 2010?
| A．A planet with water. | B．A planet similar to the earth. |
| C．A planet without life. | D．A planet near the earth. |
| A．is at the right distance from its star | B．moves around the earth |
| C．is as far away from us as the moon | D．can be reached in about 220 years |
| A．the possibility of living on Gliese 581g |
| B．the kinds of chemicals around Gliese 581g |
| C．the way of looking for life on Gliese 581g |
| D．the aim of studying the radiation on Gliese 581g |
| A．Gliese 581g, a Likely Living Planet | B．Gliese 581, a Likely Living Planet |
| C．Gliese 581g and Its Star | D．Gliese 581g and Radiation |
10 . Do stars only appear at night? The answer is no. Venus is the one and only star that can be seen in daytime. It shone at its brightest in the night sky on Feb 17 this year. Venus is the second planet from the sun. It is the second brightest natural object, behind Earth’s moon, in the night sky. Why is it so bright?
First of all, Venus is the closest planet to Earth. It is also covered by highly reflective clouds, which can reflect about 70% of the sunlight striking it, almost twice as much as Earth does.
Some are calling 2017 the year of Venus, because the planet is at its brightest twice this year. Venus gets brighter when it goes further away from the sun, and nearer to the Earth. The brightest moment happened once in February, and will happen again, during daylight, on April 30.
If Venus is so bright and close to us, isn’t it a better choice for human exploration(探索) than Mars? It is closer to Earth than Mars and it’s closer to Earth in size. The closer distance to the sun means solar power would be easier to produce as well.
However, with a temperature of about 465℃ on the surface, Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system! But scientists never give up. Recently, a team of NASA and Russian scientists created new computer equipment that can stand temperatures of 480℃. It can work under Venus-like conditions for almost 22 days.
1. The next step, according to the scientists, is to send a probe (探测器) to Venus by 2025.Which of the following about Venus is NOT true？
| A．It’s the only star that can be seen in daylight. |
| B．It’s the second planet from the sun. |
| C．It’s the brightest natural object in the night sky. |
| D．It’s the closest planet to Earth. |
| A．it can reflect about 35% of the sunlight. |
| B．it goes further away from the sun and nearer to the Earth. |
| C．it is closest to the sun and furthest from the Earth. |
| D．the dates are Feb 17 and April 30 every year. |
| A．The closer distance to Earth. | B．the similar size to Earth |
| C．Too much solar power to use | D．The extremely high temperature. |
a. was created by some UK scientists
b. can stand temperatures of 480℃
c. can work for about 22 days on Venus
d. will be sent to Venus by 2025
| A．ab | B．bc | C．cd | D．ad |
