1 . For thousands of years, humans have explored (探索) the Earth. Nowadays, we are exploring space. Astronomers are the modern-day explorers. Now, many astronomers are looking for new planets and new places for humans to live in the future. But where do astronomers start exploring?
First of all, astronomers look for a star. That’s because our own Earth moves around a star—the Sun. More importantly, it is neither too far from nor too near to the Sun for heat and light. So when astronomers have found the star, they look at the planets around it. In recent years, astronomers have found nearly 400 new planets with stars. However, many of these planets are either too near to the star or too far away.
However, if the planet is in a good place, astronomers look for three key things: water, air and rock (岩石). Water is the most important because all life needs water. Humans can drink it and they can also grow plants with water. And plants produce air for humans to breathe and food to eat. Rock on a planet is also important. That’s because there is often water under the rock.
After many years of exploring, astronomers have found a planet like the Earth. It’s Gliese 581g and it’s near a star. The astronomers think it has water and rock and the temperature is between -31℃ and -12℃. That’s cold, but not colder than Antarctica or the Arctic Circle, for example, Gliese 581g is bigger than the Earth. A year on Gliese 581g is only 37 Earth days, not 365 Earth days. But astronomers do not think these are big differences and some of them think Gliese 581g will be a new Earth. However, Gliese 581g is twenty light years from the Earth.
1. How do astronomers discover a new planet for humans to live on? Choose the right order.a. Astronomers look for three key things.
b. Astronomers look for and find a right star.
c. Astronomers look at the planets around the star.
| A．a-b-c. | B．b-a-c. | C．b-c-a. | D．c-a-b. |
| A．Water. | B．Air. | C．Rock. | D．Food. |
| A．the Earth | B．Gliese 581g | C．the Sun | D．Gliese |
| A．37 | B．365 | C．10 | D．15 |
| A．Gliese 581g is already a new Earth. |
| B．There are some planets like our Earth. |
| C．Water, air and rock are important. |
| D．Astronomers are looking for a new Earth. |
Scientists have always wanted to know more about the universe.
Years ago, they knew many things about the moon. They knew how big it was and how far away it was from the Earth. But they wanted to know more about it. They thought the best way was to send men to the moon.
The moon is about 384,000 kilometers away from the Earth. A plane can not fly to the moon, because the air reaches only 240 kilometers away from the Earth. But something can fly even when there is no air. That is the rocket.
How does a rocket fly? There is gas (气体) in the rocket. When the gas is made very hot inside the rocket, it will rush out of the end of the rocket, so it can make the rocket fly up into the sky.
Rockets can fly out into the space. Rockets with men in them have been to the moon. Several satellites without men in them have flown to another planet much farther away than the moon. One day rockets may be able to go to any place in space.
1. Scientists have known ________ the moon was.| A．how long | B．how heavy | C．how big |
| A．there is no air above 240 kilometers away from the Earth |
| B．there is no gas in the plane |
| C．the plane is not strong enough |
| A．keeping the air in the rocket fresh |
| B．making the rocket fly up |
| C．keeping the men in the rocket warm |
| A．the stars | B．the satellites of the Sun | C．another planet much farther away than the moon |
3 . What do black holes look like? Human beings have wanted to know about it for a long time. In 2019, we finally got the answer. They look like dark circles with a bright ring around the outside.
Scientists took the world’s first photo of a black hole. Scientists didn’t use a camera to take the picture. They used eight radio telescopes in different places around the world. Telescopes got signals (信号) from the black hole. Scientists used computers to process (处理) the signals. It took them two years to get the final picture.
The black hole is very far from Earth—about 55 million light years away. One light year is the journey that light travels in one year. One light year is about 9 trillion (万亿) kilometers.
This isn’t the only black hole in the universe. In fact, scientists believe every large galaxy (星系) has a big black hole at its center. The one in our galaxy is called Sagittarius A.
Black holes are some of the most mysterious (神秘的) things in the universe. This photo can help us learn more about them.
1. What do we know about black holes?| A．They are dark holes with a bright center. |
| B．They are many black circles inside each other. |
| C．They are black holes with colorful rings in the center. |
| D．They are dark circles with a bright ring around the outside. |
| A．Scientists took the picture of the black hole with a camera. |
| B．The black holes aren’t very far from the Earth. |
| C．The picture of the black hole can help us learn a lot about them. |
| D．Sagittarius A is the only black hole in the universe. |
| A．In a science magazine. | B．In a storybook. |
| C．In a travel guidebook. | D．In a physics exercise. |
4 . Do you know Venus (金星)? Of the eight planets, Venus is the nearest one to us. Venus was the Roman goddess of love and beauty. In Greek her name was Aphrodite. Venus and the Earth are almost the same size, and you would weigh almost the same on both planets. If you were 70 pounds on Earth, you would be 63 pounds on Venus. Venus is an “unfriendly” planet. Because of its thick cloud, you can’t see the surface (表面). In many ways, Venus is like the Earth. It has active volcanoes (火山), mountains and valleys, too. But Venus is too hot for life. It has the highest temperature of the planets in our solar system, about 480°C. Besides, the Earth lets heat out through volcanoes, hot springs. But Venus lets heat out in a different way. Venus has no moons. Scientists call Venus the Earth’s sister planet because Venus and the Earth are almost the same size. For a long time, most scientists thought that Venus probably had plants, animals, and possibly even human beings. However, because Venus is so hot, it is impossible for anything to live there.
1. Aphrodite is the goddess of ________ in Greek.| A．love and beauty | B．danger and thought |
| C．love and thought | D．beauty and danger |
| A．70kg | B．63kg | C．54kg | D．20kg |
| A．It’s the nearest planet to us. |
| B．It’s almost the same size as the Earth. |
| C．People can’t see it clearly from the outside. |
| D．Anything can’t live there. |
| A．The surface of Venus is much hotter than that of the Earth. |
| B．Venus has the same way to let heat out as the Earth. |
| C．The Earth and Venus are similar in size. |
| D．Both the Earth and Venus have active volcanoes. |
| A．The Introduction to Venus | B．The Story of Venus |
| C．Life on Other Planets | D．Planets Around Us |
5 . Scientists think that there
The earth is a planet and it
Scientists have also discovered many other galaxies in the universe. They are very far away and their light has to travel for many years to reach us. So
Scientists have sent spaceships to the planet Mars
Scientists have always asked the questions: with so many stars in the universe, are we
| A．have been | B．has been | C．is | D．are |
| A．yet | B．already | C．just | D．ever |
| A．go | B．went | C．goes | D．going |
| A．No one | B．Neither | C．Either | D．None |
| A．called | B．call | C．to call | D．calls |
| A．what large | B．how small | C．how large | D．how long |
| A．to take photos | B．take photos | C．taking photos | D．takes photos |
| A．enough far | B．enough near | C．far enough | D．near enough |
| A．lonely | B．alone | C．along | D．long |
| A．someone | B．anyone | C．somebody | D．no one |
6 . Chang’e-5 has returned from the moon to Earth. The mission’s success made China the third country to bring back samples (样本) from the moon.
Chang’e-5 was China’s third mission to land on the moon, and it’s first to get samples from the moon. There were no astronauts on this trip. Scientists ran the mission with robotic machines.
Chang’e-5 was launched (发射) from Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on November 24th, 2020. On December 1st, it got to the moon. During the stay on the moon, it got 1,731 grams of lunar samples. On December 3rd, our national flag was shown on the moon. After that, Chang’e-5 was ready to go home. On December 17th, Chang’e-5 landed safely in Inner Mongolia.
Chang’e-5 was the first mission to get samples from the moon in over 40 years. The samples will help scientists better understand the history of the moon and the solar system.
The Chang’e-5 mission has made many Chinese people excited and proud of their country’s success. The mission also showed that China has a first-rate (一流的) space program that is able to compete with other countries.
Answer the following questions according to what you read.
1. Was Chang’e-5 China’s first mission to get samples from the moon?
2. When was Chang’e-5 launched?
3. How long has Chang-5 been in space?
4. Who could use the samples to do some research?
5. As Chinese, how do we feel about Chang’e-5’s success?
It often takes astronauts days to go to the moon. But will people live there? Will people
Some people think it is
Who will go to the moon? Maybe
Will it
| A．draw | B．build | C．pollute | D．share |
| A．difficult | B．boring | C．meaningless | D．possible |
| A．Food | B．Houses | C．Air | D．Clothes |
| A．find | B．eat | C．grow | D．sell |
| A．or | B．if | C．because | D．but |
| A．come from | B．look like | C．get to | D．think about |
| A．writers | B．workers | C．scientists | D．doctors |
| A．animals | B．stars | C．sea | D．mountains |
| A．seriously | B．luckily | C．probably | D．cheaply |
| A．reach | B．expect | C．play | D．happen |
A team of scientists are carrying out a project at the University of Greenwich in London. They are trying to find ways to make food on Mars in the future. The project is called Feeding Mars. It tries to use water, fish and fish waste to grow fruit and vegetables on Mars.
It would take at least 21 months to reach Mars, learn about its surface and return to Earth. So it would be a big help if the spacemen could grow fresh food on Mars itself. However, farming on Mars will be very hard. There’s a lot of water that could be taken from ice just below the surface, but the land on Mars is short of the nutrients that living things need. The team says that they could solve the problem by growing plants and fish together. Fish waste can then be used to provide nutrients for plants.
“It is expected that you can grow lots of food, such as vegetables, tea and medicinal plants on Mars,” said Dr. Benz Kotzen, who leads the project. “You can even harvest fish for food then.”
1. The project tries to use water and fish to grow fruit on the moon.2. The project would take at least 21 months to return to Mars.
3. The poor land condition makes it difficult to farm on Mars.
4. Scientists could grow plants and fish together to solve the nutrients’ problem.
5. Dr. Benz Kotzen was disappointed about this project.
Scientists have worked out when our Sun will die. It won’t be any time soon. It will be in 10 billion years. The scientists are from the University of Manchester in the UK. They predict that in about 5 billion years from now, the Sun will turn into a “red giant”. This is the scientific name given to a star at the end of its life. When our Sun becomes a red giant, its centre will shrink (收缩) . Its outer layers will expand (膨胀) as far as Mars. This means Earth will be burnt and disappear. After our Sun turns into a red giant, it will become a bubble of gas and space dust. The scientists say no humans will be on Earth when the Sun dies out.
The Sun is still quite young in space years. It is just 4.6 billion years old. This means it is only around one third into its lifespan (寿命) . Professor Albert Zijlstra, a scientist from the University of Manchester, explained what happens at the end of a star’s life. He said, “By this point in the star’s life, it is running out of fuel. Then it turns off and dies.” Professor Zijlstra was happy that modern science can count the age of stars and what will happen to them. “We even have found out what the Sun will do when it dies.” He said.
1. According to the scientists, when will the sun die?2. When do we call a star “red giant”?
3. What will happen to humans when the sun dies out?
4. What’s the lifespan of the Sun?
5. Should we worry about the sun’s death? Why or why not?
When we look up at the night sky, we see the twinkling stars. But what we don’t see is the space junk (垃圾) floating up the space. Now there may be as many as 170 million pieces of space junk in Earth’s orbit (轨道). If they hit our satellites or spaceships, they can destroy them and make them stop working.
Facing the big danger by space junk, scientists are working hard on its cleanup although it’s really a tough job and takes a long time. The European Space Agency (ESA) plans to use a “junk truck”, ClearSpace-1, in 2025. It’s a spaceship that can find its target and move close to it, then catch it with its four “arms”. This is not going to be an easy job because even the smallest junk circles Earth as fast as 8 kilometers a second. Once it catches the junk, the spaceship will carry it back to Earth. This is because the junk will burn up when traveling through the atmosphere (大气层), so there won’t be much left when it reaches Earth. However, the spaceship itself will burn up at the same time.
Since the original cleanup plan will cause huge loss, scientists are trying to work out other plans. One new plan is to send a spaceship carrying special tools, which are used to shoot to stick into the space junk, moving it away from the orbit and throwing it into Earth’s atmosphere.
Space junk is a huge threat which endangers our satellites or spaceships, but why haven’t space agencies around the world done anything yet? One reason is the cost. To catch one piece of space junk larger than 10cm wide would cost between $4,000 and $60,000 (about 30,000 to 436,000 yuan) per kilogram.
With space traffic increasing, all nations have to work together to find out more ways to reduce space junk, or there will be more in-space accidents.
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| SOME INFORMATION ABOUT SPACE CLEANING PLAN: ✧ Scientists are trying to work out space cleaning plans because space junk is ✧ ESA plans to use ClearSpace-1, a ✧ The space junk travels so ✧ In the new space cleaning plan, a spaceship is used to ✧ Although the |
