1. Where did the man learn about the new planet?
| A．From TV news. | B．From the website. | C．From the newspaper. |
| A．By researching into the star’s light. |
| B．By building a universe model. |
| C．By analyzing the star’s life. |
2 . A satellite is an object in space that orbits around another. It has two kinds — natural satellites and artificial satellites. The moon is a natural satellite that moves around the earth while artificial satellites are those made by man.
Despite their widespread impact on daily life, artificial satellites mainly depend on different complicated makeups. On the outside, they may look like a wheel, equipped with solar panels or sails. Inside, the satellites contain mission-specific scientific instruments, which include whatever tools the satellites need to perform their work. Among them, high-resolution cameras and communication electronics are typical ones. Besides, the part that carries the load and holds all the parts together is called the bus.
Artificial satellites operate in a systematic way just like humans. Computers function as the satellite’s brain, which receive information, interpret it, and send messages back to the earth. Advanced digital cameras serve as the satellite’s eyes. Sensors are other important parts that not only recognize light, heat, and gases, but also record changes in what is being observed. Radios on the satellite send information back to the earth. Solar panels provide electrical power for the computers and other equipment, as well as the power to move the satellite forward.
Artificial satellites use gravity to stay in their orbits. Earth’s gravity pulls everything toward the center of the planet. To stay in the earth’s orbit, the speed of a satellite must adjust to the tiniest changes in the pull of gravity. The satellite’s speed works against earth’s gravity just enough so that it doesn’t go speeding into space or falling back to the earth.
Rockets carry satellites to different types and heights of orbits, based on the tasks they need to perform. Satellites closer to the earth are in low-earth orbit, which can be 200-500 miles high. The closer to the earth, the stronger the gravity is. Therefore, these satellites must travel at about 17,000 miles per hour to keep from falling back to the earth, while higher-orbiting satellites can travel more slowly.
1. What is Paragraph 2 of the text mainly about?| A．The appearance of artificial satellites. | B．The components of artificial satellites. |
| C．The basic function of artificial satellites. | D．The specific mission of artificial satellites. |
| A．Providing electrical power. | B．Recording changes observed. |
| C．Monitoring space environment. | D．Processing information received. |
| A．By relying on powerful rockets to get out of gravity. |
| B．By orbiting at a fixed speed regardless of gravity’s pull. |
| C．By changing speed constantly based on the pull of gravity. |
| D．By resisting the pull of gravity with advanced technologies. |
| A．They are more affected by earth’s gravity. |
| B．They take advantage of rockets more effectively. |
| C．They have weaker pull of gravity in higher orbits. |
| D．They are equipped with more advanced instruments. |
3 . For children, space is magical — a whole world is out there, with so many things to learn and stories to read. Here are some children’s books about space and the solar system.
Mae among the Stars by Stasia Burrington
This beautifully illustrated picture book is attractive to young kids. It was inspired by the first African American woman in space, Mae Jemison. It tells the story of Mae as a little girl, who always knew she had big dreams about space. This is a great addition to a young kid’s collection, as a reminder to hold tight to dreams and never give up.
Space by Libby Jackson
This beautifully illustrated book gives kids a look at 50 women from around the world who were involved in exploring space in some way, from the 19th century to the present day. This is a perfect gift for young kids who want to know more about some of the lesser-known scientific achievements related to space exploration.
Chasing Space by Leland Melvin
This is Melvin’s story about being a football player-turned-astronaut, along with his recovery from an injury that nearly left him deaf. Kids will love reading his story about how he faced challenges and advanced ahead, and he also includes DIY experiments for kids to try, and a section of full-color photographs.
System and Beyond by David A. Aguilar
The book is full of beautiful illustrations of space, and is perfect for kids of all ages, exploring various planets and the solar system. Unlike other kids’ space book, this is a National Geographic book written and illustrated by an award-winning astronomer and space artist. Aguilar is also the former Director of Science Information and Public Outreach at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
1. What do Mae among the Stars and Space have in common?| A．They include less-known astronauts. | B．They tell about scientists’ childhood. |
| C．They cover women exploring space. | D．They are suitable for children of all ages. |
| A．Stasia Burrington’s. | B．Libby Jackson’s. |
| C．Leland Melvin’s. | D．David A. Aguilar’s. |
| A．It has beautiful pictures. | B．It tells about space artists. |
| C．It has won many grand awards. | D．It was written by an astronomer. |
4 . You look up at the sky on a clear and dark night, you’ll see more stars than your eyes can count. Most of these stars have planets, similar to our own, orbiting them. With so many celestial bodies floating out in space, you can’t help but question whether other forms of life exist in the universe. And if that’s the case, is it possible to contact them?
Science is still somewhat divided on this issue. Currently, no evidence exists to suggest that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe. Yet with an estimated one trillion planets in our galaxy alone, it seems highly likely that Earthlings aren’t the only intelligent creatures out there. Some claim that life can only develop under perfect circumstances, and Earth is perhaps the only example of this. Other scientists object to this claim, and point out that even on Earth, life can find a way under the most extreme circumstances.
Some people believe that aliens have already visited our planet, but this information is being kept secret by governments. The most famous incident of this kind occurred in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. On that date, many residents reported seeing an unusual flying disc streak through the sky, before it crashed in a field. When the military heard about the crash, they quickly sealed off the area. A few hours later, the army base announced that it had recovered a flying disk. Shortly after, this statement was retracted and it was said that it was a weather balloon that crashed. However, years later one local mortician even claimed that the military had him secretly perform an autopsy on a dead alien body.
Others believe that there certainly are other life forms out there, but the distance between us is too great. Even if we could somehow create a spaceship that travels at the speed of light, it would still probably take several lifetimes to reach them. Then again, we might never have to do this if aliens reach us first.
1. Why do some scientists think there is life on other planets?| A．Because an unusual flying disc was ever witnessed. |
| B．Because life exists despite extreme conditions as those on the Earth do. |
| C．Because the government’s statement seemed suspicious. |
| D．Because there are a great number of planets in the universe. |
| A．Examined again to guarantee the correctness. | B．Emphasized again to persuade people. |
| C．Formally taken back what has been said. | D．Seriously criticized due to poor evidence |
| A．Are we alone in the universe? | B．Is it possible to contact aliens? |
| C．Intelligent life in the universe. | D．Planets floating out in space. |
| A．Objective. | B．Humorous. | C．Cautious. | D．Anxious. |
5 . Like a phoenix (凤凰), some stars may burst to life covered in “ash,” rising from the remains of stars that had previously passed on.
Two fireballs covered in carbon and oxygen, ashy byproducts of helium fusion (氦聚变), belong to a new class of stars, researchers report in the March Monthly Notices. Though these burning objects are not the first stars found covered in carbon and oxygen, they are the first discovered to have helium-burning cores.
“That merger (并合) tells you the star must have evolved differently,” says study author Nicole Reindl.
The stars may have formed from the merger of two white dwarfs (白矮星), the remaining hearts of stars that exhausted their fuel, Reindl further explains. One of the two was rich in helium, while the other contained lots of carbon and oxygen. These two white dwarfs had already been orbiting one another, but gradually drew together. Eventually the helium-rich white dwarf “ate” its partner, leaving carbon and oxygen all over its surface, just as a messy child might get food all over their face.
Such a merger would have produced a star covered in carbon and oxygen to burn nuclear fusion in its core again, says Tiara Battich, a German astrophysicist.
To test this idea, Battich copied the evolution, death and eventual merger of two stars on his computer and simulated (模拟) the process. He found that putting together a carbon-and-oxygen-rich white dwarf and a more massive helium one could explain the compositions of the two stars observed by Reindl and her colleagues.
“But this should happen very rarely,” Battich says. In most cases the opposite should occur, because carbon-oxygen white dwarfs are usually the more massive ones. For the rarer case to occur, two stars slightly more massive than the sun must have formed at just the right distance and the right time.
"The origins story Battich proposes demands a very specific and unusual set of circumstances, " says Simon Blouin, a Canadian astrophysicist. “But in the end, it makes sense.”
1. What’s the newest discovery of the merger of two stars?| A．It produces a mass of helium ash. |
| B．It possesses a helium-burning core. |
| C．It is covered in carbon and oxygen. |
| D．It makes an oxygen atmosphere for life. |
| A．By co-working with Rcindl’s team. |
| B．By making astronomic observations. |
| C．By building models on his computer. |
| D．By testing the two stars’ compositions. |
| A．the carbon-oxygen white dwarf “ate” the helium one |
| B．the helium white dwarf “ate” the carbon-oxygen one |
| C．helium white dwarfs are usually the more massive ones |
| D．carbon-oxygen white dwarfs are usually the more massive ones |
| A．The formation of stars makes sense. |
| B．The burning of stars brings them to life. |
| C．Stars inspire scientists to reflect on the universe. |
| D．Star mergers can unfold in more than one way. |
6 . For the first few months of 2021, Mars was crowded with new “visitors” from Earth. First, it was the UAE Space Agency’s Hope, followed by the Chinese Tianwen-1. The name comes from the long poem Tianwen, written by Qu Yuan, a great poet of ancient China. In Tianwen, this name conveys China’s steady effort in pursuing truth and culture of exploring the universe.
The Tianwen-1 rover landing has orbiting, landing and roving (巡视) components—the first mission to include all three on its first attempt. Landing on Mars is extremely dangerous. It requires entering the atmosphere at very high speeds, then slowing down before landing. As to Tianwen-1, a heat shield (防热护罩) protected the spacecraft during the fiery (燃烧的) landing, after which the mission safely parachuted (使空降) down to the Utopia Planitia (乌托邦平原). The landing platform fired small, downward-facing rocket engines to slow down during the last few seconds.
China’s Mars rover, called Zhurong after an ancient Chinese fire god, sent back images of the surface of Mars captured by a camera on its front, which functions as an “eye” to detect barriers and get around them. The Utopia Planitia, where Tianwen-1 landed, has long been believed to contain vast amounts of water ice. Zhurong will first and foremost study Martian soil and atmosphere and search for signs of water ice, which suggests the existence of life.
Tianwen-1 is China’s first interplanetary (行星间的) mission. Meanwhile, China is working with Russia on a sample-return mission scheduled to launch in 2024. China is open and inclusive in the development of its space technology to build a community with a shared future for mankind.
1. Why was China’s “visitor” to Mars named Tianwen?| A．To emphasize the value of exploring Mars. |
| B．To arouse readers’ interest in reading classics. |
| C．To illustrate the long history of writing poems. |
| D．To show China’s constant struggle in space exploration. |
| A．The heat shield on the spacecraft. |
| B．The camera on the front of Zhurong. |
| C．The flat landscape of the Utopia Planitia. |
| D．The rocket engines above the landing platform. |
| A．To build a shared future for mankind. |
| B．To look for signs of life on the red planet. |
| C．To push the boundaries of space exploration. |
| D．To inform people of our achievements in space. |
| A．China is the first country to land a rover on Mars. |
| B．China is confident of the existence of life on Mars. |
| C．Tianwen-1 proves joint efforts matter in space research. |
| D．Tianwen-1 marks the start of China’s interplanetary exploration. |
7 . The far side of the moon is a strange and wild region, quite different from the familiar and mostly smooth face we see nightly from our planet. Soon this rough space will have even stranger features: it will be crowded with radio telescopes.
Astronomers are planning to make the moon's distant side our newest and best window on the cosmic(宇宙的) dark ages, a mysterious era hiding early marks of stars and galaxies. Our universe was not always filled with stars. About 380,000 years after the big bang, the universe cooled, and the first atoms of hydrogen formed. Gigantic hydrogen clouds soon filled the universe. But for a few hundred million years, everything remained dark, without stars. Then came the cosmic dawn: the first stars flickered, galaxies came into existence and slowly the universe's largescale structure took shape.
The seeds of this structure must have been present in the darkage hydrogen clouds, but the era has been impossible to probe using optical(光学的) telescopes—there was no light. And although this hydrogen produced longwavelength(or lowfrequency) radio emissions,radio telescopes on Earth have found it nearly impossible to detect them. Our atmosphere either blocks or disturbs these faint signals; those that get through are drowned out by humanity's radio noise.
Scientists have dreamed for decades of studying the cosmic dark ages from the moon's far side. Now multiple space agencies plan lunar missions carrying radiowavedetecting instruments—some within the next three years—and astronomers' dreams are set to become reality.
“If I were to design an ideal place to do lowfrequency radio astronomy, I would have to build the moon,” says astrophysicist Jack Burns of the University of Colorado Boulder. “We are just now finally getting to the place where we're actually going to be putting these telescopes down on the moon in the next few years.”
1. What's the purpose of building radio telescopes on the moon?| A．To research the big bang. | B．To discover unknown stars. |
| C．To study the cosmic dark ages. | D．To observe the far side of the moon. |
| A．Explore. | B．Evaluate. |
| C．Produce. | D．Predict. |
| A．there was no light in the dark ages |
| B．they cannot possibly get through our atmosphere |
| C．gigantic hydrogen clouds no longer fill the universe |
| D．radio signals on Earth cause too much interference |
| A．Scientists have to rebuild the moon. |
| B．We will finally get to the moon's distant side. |
| C．The moon is a perfect place to set up radio telescopes. |
| D．A favorable research environment will be found on the moon. |
8 . Since 1998, when NASA kicked off the biggest search for near-Earth asteroids (小行星), scientists have detected more than 25,000 of them. 2020 turned out to be a record year for discoveries. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic interrupting many of the surveys, astronomers recorded 2,958 previously unknown near-Earth asteroids over the year.
A large number came from the Catalina Sky Survey, which uses three telescopes in Arizona to hunt for threatening space rocks. Operations closed briefly last spring because of the pandemic. A wildfire in June caused a longer closure, yet the Catalina survey still discovered 1,548 near-Earth objects.
These included a rare ‘mini-moon’ named 2020 CD3, a tiny asteroid less than 3 metres in diameter (直径) that had been temporarily captured by Earth’s gravity. The mini-moon broke away from Earth’s pull last April.
Other discoveries last year, 1,152 came from the Pan-STARRS survey telescopes in Hawaii. The finds included an object named 2020 SO, which turned out to be not an asteroid, but a leftover rocket booster that had been circling around in space since it helped to launch a NASA mission to the Moon in 1966.
Some of the asteroids discovered last year came close to Earth. At least 107 of them passed the planet at a distance less than that of the Moon. Last year’s narrow escapes included the tiny asteroid 2020 QG, which skimmed just 2,950 kilometres above the Indian Ocean in August. That made it the closest known approach, a record broken just three months later by another small object, 2020 VT4. That one passed less than 400 kilometres from the planet, and wasn’t spotted until 15 hours after it had zipped by. Had it hit, it would probably have broken apart in Earth’s atmosphere.
All of these discoveries are making astronomers more conscious of the ball objects of the Solar System, where plenty of asteroids spin around in the space near Earth.
1. How many near-Earth asteroids might have flown past Earth in 2020?| A．More than 2,958. |
| B．1,152. |
| C．More than 25,000. |
| D．1,548. |
| A．It’s an asteroid. |
| B．It’s space junk. |
| C．It’s a mini-moon. |
| D．It’s a NASA mission. |
| A．Launching a new rocket. |
| B．Setting up a new space station. |
| C．Destroying the near-Earth asteroids. |
| D．Raising concern about the space. |
| A．The discovery was suspended due to the wildfire in June. |
| B．The scientists of NASA began the biggest search for asteroids. |
| C．The discoveries of the near-Earth asteroids hit a record high. |
| D．The astronomers renamed 2,958 newly-found near-Earth asteroids. |
1. What does ASO-S mainly do?
| A．Do solar observation. |
| B．Study Earth's atmosphere. |
| C．Make weather forecasting. |
| A．Four years. | B．Forty hours. | C．Seventy years. |
| A．It can block the sun's radiation. |
| B．It may fill China's gap in the field. |
| C．It is the first solar satellite globally. |
10 . From this issue, we explore why the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute hasn't turned up anything since its founding in the 1980s. (See page 30 for more.) We asked our Facebook followers: Do you think that astronomers will find evidence of alien life in your lifetime?
Loran McCormick: 1 think they already have it. Judging by the sudden industrialization, I figure they found something that's probably been here since before humans walked the Earth.
Jens Avery: We may find life, but it may not want anything to do with us. We are not very advanced and can't even get along with each other.
Steven Buhrow: I think the more important question is — will any government ever publicly admit it in our lifetime? I fully believe that we could discover alien life today and the government would simply say the public is not ready for this information.
Jenna Walsh: I think we already see it, but just don't realize what it is. Intelligent alien life probably doesn't want anything to do with the disaster that is Earth at this point, so no doubt they're playing it safe and observing from a safe distance.
Christopher Harvey: By alien life, do you mean intelligent alien life? Then no. It would be extremely hard to find, short of them coming down to Earth. But if you mean unintelligent alien life, like bacteria or single cell, we might.
1. Why did we ask the Facebook followers the question?| A．To question the efficiency of SETI. |
| B．To confirm the appearance of aliens on earth. |
| C．To ensure the existence of aliens. |
| D．To complain about the failure to find aliens. |
| A．Loran McCormick. | B．Steven Buhrow. |
| C．Jenna Walsh. | D．Christopher Harvey. |
| A．An album. | B．A science fiction. |
| C．A magazine. | D．A travel guide. |
