1. When will the solar eclipse happen?
| A．At 2:50 pm. | B．At 3:20 pm. | C．At 3:10 pm. |
| A．To keep the birds safe. | B．To stop the birds singing. | C．To protect her eyes. |
2 . A high school teacher and his students have discovered that an asteroid (小行星) hit by a NASA spacecraft, in a test run for saving the Earth from an impact, is behaving unexpectedly. The find could have effects on future planetary defense missions.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is a project designed to launch and crash a fridge-sized spacecraft into an asteroid called Dimorphos, orbiting a larger asteroid Didymos. The purpose of the exercise was to see how significantly the previous path of Dimorphos could be changed by the impact. Before DART’s impact, it would take Dimorphos 11 hours and 55 minutes to complete a lap around Didymos. NASA was hoping the DART crash could change the cycle by about 73 seconds, but observations made in the weeks following the impact determined that the results were much more significant, reducing Dimorphos’ orbital period by some 33 minutes.
But California high school teacher Jonathan Swift and his students discovered that Dimorphos’ orbital period was a full minute longer than the time reported by NASA last year. They used the school’s observatory to track Dimorphos and Didymos for several months last fall. Swift presented his class’ findings at the American Astronomical Society conference in June. The DART team has since confirmed that Dimorphos did indeed continue slowing in its orbit up to a month after the impact.
Scientists aren’t sure exactly what is behind the slowdown of Dimorphos. But recent observations of the asteroid have revealed a vast field of large rocks were kicked up by the impact. It’s possible that some of the larger space rocks fell back onto Dimorphos within that first month, slowing its orbit further, DART team member Harrison Agrusa said.
The DART team plans to release its own report on the unexpected findings in the coming weeks. However, complete answers may have to wait until 2026, when the European Space Ageney’s Hera spacecraft is scheduled to investigate the crash site up closely.
1. What was the purpose of launching the NASA spacecraft?| A．To change Dimorphos’ orbital cycle. |
| B．To stop Dimorphos hitting the Earth. |
| C．To reduce Didymos’ path around the sun. |
| D．To make Didymos move in a bigger orbit. |
| A．1 full minute. | B．2 minutes or so. |
| C．Nearly 33 minutes. | D．About 32 minutes. |
| A．How seriously Dimorphos was damaged. |
| B．What happened to the rocks on Dimorphos. |
| C．Why Dimorphos slowed down for a month. |
| D．What Dimorphos looked like after the impact. |
| A．To crash into another asteroid nearby. |
| B．To measure the previous impact results. |
| C．To affect the motion of the twin asteroids. |
| D．To identify the asteroids threatening the Earth. |
3 . Scientists have long believed that Mars was wet around three billion years ago and then lost much of its water. But a new study presents evidence of water activity from about 700 million years ago, posing a new puzzle about Mars and its history for scientists to crack in their future studies.
The new study is based on data from China’s Zhurong rover (“祝融号”火星车), part of the Tianwen-1 mission that touched down on the surface of Mars in May 2021. In particular, the scientists used data the rover gathered during its first 92 Martian days, at its landing site in Utopia Planitia. Yang Liu, a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS), and his colleagues analyzed data from three different instruments on Zhurong. Those instruments studied minerals that suggest the presence of a large quantity of liquid water at the site about 700 million years ago, which scientists previously thought was dry.
“This is a very interesting result. We have very little recorded evidence of young liquid water systems on Mars. And for the ones we have, they were usually in the form of salt minerals,” says Dr. Scheller, a scientist at the California Institute of Technology. He explained Zhurong’s instruments spotted water molecules locked away in the rock, which was different from other young liquid water environments that have been observed.
“One of the major things we’ll have to find out and that I look forward to seeing from the Zhurong rover is how extensive these ‘young’ water-bearing minerals are,” Dr. Scheller said. “Are they common or uncommon in these ‘young’ rocks?” Zhurong has now covered about two kilometers during its more than 350 Martian days and has analyzed a range of features on its travels, meaning more new Martian insights are likely still to come from the rover.
NASA has so far sent its Mars rovers to ancient landing sites, dating back to more than 3.7 billion years ago. Zhurong is not just an extra set of wheels on Mars, but a powerful suite of instruments exploring a new, geologically young site to open new windows of opportunity for research on Mars.
1. What does the underlined word “crack” in paragraph 1 mean?| A．Keep. | B．Doubt. | C．Solve. | D．Create. |
| A．The inaccuracy of data gathered on Mars. |
| B．Functional limitations of instruments on Mars. |
| C．Main reasons for the failure of the Tianwen-1 mission. |
| D．The misconception of past thinking about Martian water. |
| A．The result has been recorded by many scientists. |
| B．Zhurong’s wide analyses will bring more surprises. |
| C．Salt minerals are younger than water-bear ing minerals. |
| D．Young water-bearing minerals are common in young rocks. |
| A．Ancient. | B．Common. | C．Alarming. | D．Promising. |
4 . Scientists have discovered a new and renewable source of water on the moon for future explorers in lunar samples from a Chinese mission.
Water was stored in tiny glass beads(珠子) in the lunar dirt where meteorite(陨石) impacts occur. These shiny, multicolored glass beads were in samples returned from the moon by China in 2020. The beads range in size from the width of one hair to several hairs; the water content was just a very small part of that, according to Hui Hejiu of Nanjing University, who took part in the study.
Since there are billions if not trillions of these impact beads, that could amount to substantial amounts of water, but mining it would be tough, according to the team. “Yes, it will require lots and lots of glass beads. There are lots and lots of beads on the moon,” said Hui in an email.
“These beads could continually yield water thanks to the constant bombing by hydrogen in the solar wind. The findings are based on 32 glass beads randomly selected from lunar dirt returned from the Chang’e 5 moon mission. Therefore, more samples will be studied,” said Hui.
These impact beads are everywhere, the result of the cooling of melted material pushed out by incoming space rocks. Water could be got by heating the beads, possibly by future robotic missions. “More studies are needed to determine whether this would be possible, and if so, whether the water would be safe to drink. This shows water can be recharged on the moon surface… a new water reservoir on the moon.” said Hui.
Previous studies found water in glass beads formed by lunar volcanic activities, based on samples returned by the American Apollo moonwalkers more than a half-century ago. These, too, could provide water not only for use by future crews, but for rocket fuel.
1. What can we learn about the glass beads from paragraph 2?| A．They are mainly made up of water. |
| B．They are all shiny and of the same color. |
| C．They are found in lunar samples from a Chinese mission. |
| D．They are of different sizes from one millimeter to several meters. |
| A．Because the beads are too small to see. |
| B．Because the beads are too hard to break. |
| C．Because the temperature of the beads is too high. |
| D．Because the water content in each bead is very small. |
| A．Different factors may lead to the formation of water in the glass beads. |
| B．More studies are needed to know the amount of water found on moon. |
| C．The study on the water found on moon has lasted 50 years in China. |
| D．Water found on the moon can be used to drink and build rockets. |
| A．Glass Beads Will Be Used To Store Water. |
| B．Water Has Been Found In Lunar Glass Beads. |
| C．Scientists Did Research On Water On The Moon. |
| D．China Successfully Took Samples From The Moon. |
5 . Until recently, gravitational waves could have been the stuff of Einstein’s imagination. Before they were detected, these waves in space time existed only in the physicist’s general theory of relativity, as far as scientists knew. Now, researchers are on the hunt for more ways to detect the waves. “The study of gravitational waves is booming,” says astrophysicist Karan Jani of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “This is just remarkable. No field I can think of in fundamental physics has seen progress this fast.”
Just as light comes in a variety of wavelengths, so do gravitational waves. Different wave lengths point to different types of origins of the universe and require different kinds of detectors. Gravitational waves with wavelengths of a few thousand kilometers—like those detected by the United States, Italy and Japan—come mostly from pairs of black holes 10 or so times the mass of the sun, or from collisions of dense cosmic blocks called neutron stars (中子星). These detectors could also spot waves from certain types of exploding stars and rapidly moving neutron stars.
In contrast, huge waves that span light-years are thought to be created by orbiting pairs of bigger black holes with masses billions of times that of the sun. In June, scientists reported the first strong evidence of these types of waves by turning the entire galaxy (星系) into a detector, watching how the waves make slight changes to the timing of regular blinks from neutron stars throughout the Milky Way.
Physicists now hope to dive into a vast, cosmic ocean of gravitational waves of all sorts of sizes. These waves could reveal new details about the secret lives of exotic objects such as black holes and unknown parts of the universe.
Physicist Jason Hogan of Stanford University thinks there are still a lot of gaps in the coverage of wavelengths. “But it makes sense to cover all the bases. Who knows what else we may find?” he says. The search for capturing the full complement of the universe’s gravitational waves exactly could take observatories out into the moon, to the atomic area and elsewhere.
1. What does Karan Jani think of the current study on gravitational waves?| A．It is rapid and pioneering. |
| B．It is slow but steadily increasing. |
| C．It is interrupted due to limited detectors. |
| D．It is progressing as fast as any other field. |
| A．The creation of different kinds of detectors. |
| B．Collisions of planets outside the solar system. |
| C．The presence of light in different wavelengths. |
| D．Activities involving black holes and neutron stars. |
| A．By analyzing sunlight. |
| B．By locating the new galaxy. |
| C．By using the whole galaxy as a tool. |
| D．By observing the sun’s regular movement. |
| A．It’ll exclude the atomic field. |
| B．It’ll focus exactly on the mapping of the galaxy. |
| C．It’ll require prioritizing certain wavelengths on the moon. |
| D．It’ll explore potential places to detect gravitational waves. |
6 . Two powerful NASA telescopes have detected the oldest and most distant black hole ever found. Data collected via energetic X-rays by the Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope has helped astronomers spot the signature of a growing black hole within the early universe just 470 million years after the big bang, which occurred 13.8 billion years ago. The discovery, described in a study published in Nature Astronomy, may help astronomers figure out how some of the first supermassive black holes formed in the universe.
“We needed Webb to find this remarkably distant galaxy (星系) and Chandra to find its supermassive black hole, “ said lead study author Akos Bogdan, in a statement. ”We also took advantage of a cosmic magnifying glass (宇宙放大镜) that boosted the amount of light we detected. “ He was referring to an effect called gravitational lensing (引力透镜效应), which occurs when closer objects act like a magnifying glass for distant objects. Gravity essentially twists and strengthens the light of distant galaxies in the background of whatever is doing the magnifying, enabling observations of otherwise invisible features.
Astronomers detected the black hole in a galaxy called UHZ1. At first glance, the galaxy appeared in the same direction as a cluster of galaxies known as Abell 2744, which is located about 3. 5 billion light-years from Earth. But data collected by the Webb telescope showed that UHZl is actually much farther away and located beyond the cluster at 13. 2 billion light-years from Earth.
The team used the Chandra Observatory to detect superheated gas releasing X-rays within UHZ1, the obvious sign of a supermassive black hole growing in size. The detection was made possible by the Abell cluster of galaxies, which intensified the light of the UHZ1 galaxy and the X-rays released by the black hole by a factor of four.
Astronomers think the discovery will help them better understand how supermassive black holes appeared and reached their huge masses so soon after the beginning of the universe.
1. What’s the possible age of the newly-found black hole?| A．470 million years. | B．13.33 billion years. |
| C．13. 8 billion years. | D．14. 27 billion years. |
| A．The process of the research. |
| B．The significance of the discovery. |
| C．The contributors to the discovery. |
| D．The background of the research. |
A． | B． |
C． | D． |
| A．The Oldest and Most Distant Black Hole Spotted. |
| B．Two Powerful NASA Telescopes Coming into Service. |
| C．New Supporting Evidence of the Big Bang Theory Detected. |
| D．Astronomers Figuring Out How the First Black Holes Formed. |
7 . Researchers have discovered the oldest black hole ever observed, dating from the dawn of the universe, and found that it is “eating” its host galaxy to death.
The international team, led by the University of Cambridge, used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to detect the black hole, which dates from 400 million years after the big bang. The results, which lead author Professor Roberto Maiolino says are “a giant leap forward”, are reported in the journal Nature.
This surprisingly massive black hole even exists so early in the universe challenges our assumptions about how black holes form and grow. The size of this newly-discovered black hole suggests that they might form in other ways: they might be ‘born big’ or they can eat matter at a rate that’s five times higher than had been thought possible. Like all black holes, this young black hole devours material from its host galaxy to fuel its growth.
According to standard models, supermassive black holes form from the remains of dead stars, which collapse and may form a black hole about a hundred times the mass of the Sun. If it grew in an expected way, this newly-detected black hole would take about a billion years to grow to its observed size. However, the universe was not yet a billion years old when this black hole was detected.
The young host galaxy, called GN-z11, is a compact galaxy, about one hundred times smaller than the Milky Way, but the black hole is likely harming its development. When black holes consume too much gas, it pushes the gas away like an ultra-fast wind. This “wind” could stop the process of star formation, slowly killing the galaxy, but it will also kill the black hole itself, as it would cut off the black hole’s source of “food”.
Maiolino says that the gigantic leap forward provided by JWST makes this the most exciting time in his career. “It’s a new era: the giant leap is like upgrading from Galileo’s telescope to a modern telescope overnight,” he said. “The universe has been quite generous in what it’s showing us, and this is just the beginning.”
1. What does the underlined word “devours” mean in Paragraph 3?| A．Changes. | B．Swallows. | C．Observes. | D．Forms. |
| A．Because the host galaxy is too small. |
| B．Because the black hole is killing itself. |
| C．Because the “wind” ceases star formation. |
| D．Because black holes produce too much gas. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Intolerant. | C．Doubtful. | D．Ambiguous. |
| A．The black hole took a billion years to achieve its size. |
| B．Supermassive black holes are assumed to form overnight. |
| C．The new discovery of the host galaxy is a giant leap forward. |
| D．The host galaxy and the black hole can be destroyed by the “wind”. |
| A．From TV. | B．From the newspaper. | C．From the Internet. |
9 . The surface of Mars is etched with ancient river valleys and lake basins. Some researchers think that liquid water once flowed on the Red Planet. Today, Mars is too cold for much, if any, liquid water to exist. And 3.8 billion years ago, when the flowing water formed, the sun was fainter than it is today, making it even harder to imagine a warm Martian climate. That’s why many researchers think Mars may have gone in and out of deep freezes.
Some researchers have suggested that early Mars only thawed out when large asteroid impacts or volcanic eruptions temporarily warmed the planet. But Kasting, a geologist at Penn State University, thinks warm windows from such dramatic events would have been too brief to carve the vast canyons that exist on Mars. Now, Kasting and his colleagues have come up with an alternative explanation. They think Mars may have experienced a series of climate cycles.
The idea goes like this: When Mars was cold and frozen, volcanoes continued to belch out the greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and hydrogen into the atmosphere. There, the gas blanket trapped heat and warmed the planet up until liquid water began to flow, forming Mars’ rivers and lakes. However, warm temperatures and abundant water would also have sped up certain chemical reactions that consumed carbon dioxide, reducing the greenhouse effect and cooling the planet back down again. Then the cycle would repeat.
Kasting shared his theory with other astronomers at the December meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, and in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. So far, Kasting’s team has only shown that such an explanation is possible, according to climate models. But the researchers say field trips could help test the idea by looking for evidence of multiple warm events, and their durations.
1. What made researchers believe that liquid water once existed on Mars?| A．The surface of Mars is with liquid water. |
| B．The temperatures of the sun. |
| C．The geological features of Mars. |
| D．The faintness of the sun. |
| A．Large asteroids had no impact on Mars. |
| B．Deep valleys couldn’t be formed in a short period of time. |
| C．Volcanic eruptions were very frequent on Mars. |
| D．Carbon dioxide and hydrogen were abundant in the atmosphere. |
| A．Carbon dioxide and hydrogen would not be changed. |
| B．The greenhouse gases played an important role in this cycle. |
| C．The climate cycles would experience three times in total. |
| D．Hot environment and a large amount of water would accelerate certain chemical reactions to generate carbon dioxide. |
| A．Climate Cycles Could Have Carved Canyons on Mars |
| B．Large Asteroid Impacts on the Red Planet |
| C．Liquid Water Existing on Mars |
| D．Ancient River Valleys Have Been Found on Mars |
On September 26, 2022, NASA
NASA noted that Dimorphos is not a
“If you were going to do this for planetary defence, you would do it 5, 10, 15, or 20 years in advance for this technique
Asteroids can be a significant danger to planet Earth. For example, around 66 million years ago, an asteroid around 6 to 9 miles across struck the Earth,
