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Xinhua news－China’s Chang’e-5 probe (探测器) will get to the earth from the moon on December 17th, 2020.
On December 3rd, 2020, a Chinese spaceship, Chang’e-5 probe, took off from the surface of the moon. It carried the country’s first samples (样本) of the soil and rocks on the moon.
Chang’e-5 probe is the first Chinese spaceship to take off from a star in space except the earth. On November 24th, Chang’e-5 probe was launched from Wenchang, Hainan Province in China. It landed safely on the moon on December 1st.
The takeoff from the moon overcame a lot of difficulties, including the different environments between the earth and the moon. “But luckily, we made it.” Xing Zhuoyi, a designer of Chang’e-5 probe said excitedly. Before the takeoff, a Chinese national flag was unfolded from the probe. “Everybody in the science hall clapped their hands together warmly.” Xing said. At that time, he felt so proud of his work and his country.
Chang’e-5 is one of the most important and challenging tasks in Chinese space history. It has also been the world’s first moon-sample task in more than 40 years. If successful, the task will help improve China’s science and technology development. It will play an important part in China’s future moon landing and deep-space exploration (探索).
1. When did Chang’e-5 take off from the moon?| A．On November 24th, 2020. | B．On December 1st, 2020. |
| C．On December 3rd, 2020. | D．On December 17th, 2020. |
| A．发射 | B．接收 | C．返回 | D．运输 |
| A．In the 1970s. | B．In the 1980s. | C．In the 1990s. | D．In the 2000s. |
① Chang’e-5 probe landed safely on the moon.
② A Chinese national flag was unfolded from the probe.
③ Chang’e-5 probe took off from the surface of the moon.
④ Chang’e-5 probe was launched from Wenchang, Hainan Province.
| A．①②③④ | B．①③②④ | C．④③①② | D．④①②③ |
| A．A Story of Chang’e | B．A Great Step for China Space |
| C．A New Journey to the Earth | D．China’s Science and Technology |
3 . If you watch the sky for about an hour after the sun goes down, you may see some “moving stars”. But they’re not really stars. They’re man-made satellites. And the biggest of all is the International Space Station（ISS）. From May to July is the best season to watch the ISS flying over the earth. And people can see it with their eyes.
The ISS is the biggest satellite（人造卫星）and scientists want to live on it. They think that the best way to learn more about space is to live there.
When the space station is finished, it will be like a city in space. People will stay and study there with many of the things they have at home. Laboratories, living rooms and power stations are being built. The ISS is the most expensive space program. Billions of dollars are being spent on it every year.
Scientists hope that the ISS will be a stepping stone for future space exploration（探测）. “The ISS will help us understand the human body better, explore space and study the earth. It can help us make life on the earth better,” said Kathryn Clark, an ISS scientist.
Sixteen countries are part of the program: the US, Russia, Canada, Japan, Brazil and 11 European countries. China isn’t an ISS country, but it has helped with some of the experiments. In 2003, China sent some rice up to the ISS to find out what space would do to it.
1. The International Space Station _____________.| A．is really a big city in space | B．is the biggest man-made satellite |
| C．can only help us explore space | D．is mainly built by the USA and Russia |
| A．building the ISS is only for scientists to live there |
| B．scientists can do anything they like there |
| C．people can see the Space Station at any time |
| D．sixteen countries are members of the space program |
| A．滑梯 | B．巅峰 | C．垫脚石 | D．走廊 |
| A．be used as astronauts’ food | B．sell it to aliens |
| C．do some science experiments | D．make it grow better in space |
| A．China will join the ISS in the future. |
| B．The scientists are building living rooms for them in the ISS. |
| C．The ISS will be more useful in the future. |
| D．The ISS costs the members of 16 countries plenty of money every year. |
4 . Have you ever dreamed of traveling in space? To travel in space, we first have to work out where our food will come from.
Today's space travellers don't go to the Moon or Mars. They go to the International Space Station（ISS）. There, the spacemen live for weeks to months.
If you visited the ISS years ago, nearly every kind of food you ate would have come from the Earth.
In 2014, scientists sent the ISS a space garden with some vegetable seeds（种子）. With water and some light, the vegetables in the garden grew. Those were the first foods being grown on the ISS. But the spacemen couldn't eat them and had to send them back to the Earth. The next year, after scientists made sure they were safe, the spacemen grew a second crop. This time the vegetables were ready for the spacemen to eat.
Gardening is different in space than it is on Earth. Without gravity, plants don't know which way is up. But they learn how to grow. They send their leaves in the direction of light and their roots into the soil.
The spacemen also have grown vegetables as well as flowers. It's important to know a plant can flower in space, because flowering is part of how some plants make fruit.
While the space garden is small for now, hopefully it could one day help provide people with food on long-time space trips.
1. Years ago, where did most of the food on the ISS come from?| A．The Mars. | B．The Earth. | C．The Moon. | D．The space garden. |
| A．The vegetables didn't taste good. |
| B．The spacemen didn't like vegetables. |
| C．The vegetables might not be safe to eat. |
| D．The scientists wanted to eat the vegetables first. |
| A．The spacemen. | B．The scientists. |
| C．The vegetables. | D．The water and light. |
| A．They stop growing. | B．They never grow up. |
| C．They grow in the direction of light. | D．They grow in the direction of the Earth. |
| A．a dream to travel in space. | B．plants in the space garden. |
| C．a trip to the Moon and Mars. | D．vegetable seeds from the Earth. |
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6 . Mission to Mars
On July 4, 1997, space exploration took a huge step. On that day, a spacecraft called Pathfinder landed on Mars. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sent Pathfinder to discover new information about the Red Planet.
The mission was a complete success. After landing, Pathfinder sent a small rover (漫游机器人), Sojourner, onto the planet's surface. Sojourner explored more than 250 square meters of Mars. Together, designed Sojourner to last for only seven days, but little vehicle ran twelve times longer! Pathfinder surprised scientists, too. It sent back information for almost three months. That was three times longer than it was built to last.
Because Pathfinder and Sojourner ran for so long, scientists got more information than they ever dreamed of getting. For one thing, they discovered that Mars is very sandy. Pictures of sand dunes around the land site hint that Mars once had water. Scientists know that water means life. Was there ever life on Mars? We don't know yet. In addition, the Pathfinder mission told scientists that Mars is dusty. Huge "dust devils" on Mars spit enormous amounts of dust into the Martian air. Pathfinder also discovered frosty Martian temperatures at 200 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. At that temperature, a glass of water would freeze solid in just a few seconds.
In October, scientists lost Pathfinder's signal because the spacecraft's battery had run down. They tried to revive the signal but had no luck. The mission officially ended on November 4.
Scientists hope to use the knowledge from these missions to better understand how life on earth began. They will also use it to plan future Mars missions.
1. What did NASA do to get information about Mars?| A．NASA sent the spacecraft Sojourner to Mars. |
| B．NASA sent engineers on a three-month space mission. |
| C．NASA sent the spacecraft Pathfinder to Mars. |
| D．NASA sent astronauts to run tests for seven days. |
| A．Scientists found out that Mars is very cold and dusty. |
| B．Scientists got more information than they ever dreamed of getting. |
| C．Scientists learned that Mars definitely had water at one time. |
| D．Scientists found out that there was once life on Mars. |
| A．dust devils on Mars made the photographs hard to see. |
| B．Martian temperatures caused Pathfinder's battery to fail. |
| C．scientists suspect that life on Earth began on Mars. |
| D．scientists will look for signs that life existed on Mars. |
7 . 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. |
8 . How would you like to live in space someday? Some people already do--on a space station. The station circles the Earth 2230 miles above us. It moves around our planet at over 17,000 miles per hour.
Astronauts from different countries have called the space station home since the year 2000. Groups of three people take turns living on the station. They travel between their space home and the Earth on the space shuttle(航天飞机). What's it like to live on the space station? “It's like taking a four-month camping trip--in space!" says John Charles, a NASA scientist. The members of the station crew (工作人员) eat dried food, bathe with wet cloths and sleep in sleeping bags. They have to tie the sleeping bags to a wall before they sleep. If they don't do that, they will float(漂浮)around all night.
The weightlessness (失重) of space can be fun. The crew members like to jump up and down.
They also like to play catch in slow motion.
There's work to be done, too. The space station is a busy place. The station's crew members do science experiments. They also spend a lot of their time adding new parts to the station. The space shuttle brings the parts. The astronauts sometimes make space walks outside the station to connect the new parts. Building a house can take less than a year. Building the space station will take at least eight years!
1. What have astronauts called the space station since 2000?2. What is John Charles?
3. Why do the crew members have to tie the sleeping bags to a wall before they sleep?
4. Can the astronauts take showers on the space station?
5. How long will it take to build the space station?
9 . The first astronauts(宇航员)
Since the earliest times, people have looked up at the stars, the moon and the planets. Today people use modern machines
| A．look | B．to look | C．looking | D．looked |
| A．thousand | B．thousands | C．thousand of | D．thousands of |
| A．explore | B．to explore | C．explored | D．exploring |
| A．as | B．or | C．but | D．so |
| A．safe | B．safer | C．safest | D．the safest |
| A．they | B．them | C．their | D．theirs |
| A．whom | B．what | C．that | D．whose |
| A．die | B．died | C．have died | D．will die |
| A．shouldn’t | B．may not | C．don’t have to | D．needn’t |
| A．if | B．because | C．after | D．since |
10 . However exciting space travel sounds, astronauts must still suffer with bad food. Now, food in space has to be dehydrated（使脱水）or pre-cooked and stored. This means astronauts aren't really eating fresh food.
New technology may change this. Scientific American reports that a specially-designed oven will be sent into space this autumn with NASA's NG-12 cargo（货物）.Far from the common vacuum-packed（真空包装的）meals, astronauts may get to enjoy freshly baked cookies before the end of 2019.
Why aren't they baking cookies in space already?
For one thing, there's the risk of a fire. Engineers also have to overcome the challenge of microgravity, which prevents heat from circling inside ovens the same way it does on Earth.
Astronauts will still have to wait a while before they can have their cookies, though. After baking, the results will be sent back to Earth for safety testing. If successful, this will be the first oven to bake food in space.
“I believe…that will be game-changing for both science and astronauts, ”food technology researcher Maeena Naman Shafiee told Scientific American.
One of the main driving forces behind this project has been NASA's 2018 research into the effects of " confinement（封闭）and isolation（隔离）”. Unlike on the International Space Station（ISS）, astronauts traveling out of Earth's orbit may not be able to speak to their loved ones on future missions, which could lead to negative feelings.
It's hoped that the chance to bake and sense familiar smells can bring joy to crews（宇航人员）.
“Is the ISS going to smell like fresh-baked cookies? We don't know, ”said NanoRacks' communications manager Abby Dickes. “But that's a feeling we all know and love…that will make someone feel at home.”
Baking cookies in space would mark an important step, offering a small comfort in the difficult and unfamiliar environment of space travel. Astronauts have already grown plants aboard the ISS.
With commercial（商业的）space travel now being planned, who knows what other developments may surprise us in the future
1. What can the new technology help astronauts to do in space?| A．Store more food. | B．Enjoy fresh cookies. |
| C．Quickly prepare food. | D．Cook many different kinds of home-made meals. |
| A．Because it's difficult and costly to send food into space. |
| B．Because microgravity stops food from staying in one place. |
| C．Because baking cookies in space would pollute the spaceships. |
| D．Because it is hard to heat food properly because of microgravity. |
| A．To improve astronauts' health. | B．To make improvements in space travel. |
| C．To encourage more people to travel to space. | D．To make space travel more comfortable for astronauts. |
