1 . Hoping to live on the moon one day? Your chances just got a tiny bit better. Researchers found that lunar pits and caves reach stable temperatures, making them potentially suitable for human life.
Planetary scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles have been doing the research. Although much of the moon’s surface temperatures ranges from as high as 260 degrees during the day to as low as 280 degrees below zero at night, the moon has pits and caves where temperatures stay at roughly 63 degrees Fahrenheit, making human habitation a possibility, according to their new research.
For perspective, a day or night on the moon equals a little over two weeks on the earth—making long-term research and habitation difficult with such extremely hot and cold temperatures. Researchers say these stable spots could transform the future of lunar exploration and long-term habitation. The shadowed areas of these pits could also offer protection from harmful elements, such as solar radiation, universal rays and micrometeorites (微小陨石).
About 16 of the over 200 discovered pits most likely come from collapsed lava tubes—tunnels that form from cooled lava or crust, according to Tyler Horvath, a UCLA doctoral student and head of the research. The researchers think overhangs inside of these lunar pits, which were initially discovered in 2009, could be the reason for the stable temperature.
The research team also includes UCLA professor of planetary science David Paige and Paul Hayne at the University of Colorado Boulder. “Humans evolved living in caves, and to caves we might return when we live on the moon,” said Paige in a UCLA press release.
There are still plenty of other challenges to establishing any sort of long-term human residence on the moon—including growing food and providing enough oxygen. The researchers made clear that NASA has no immediate plans to establish a base camp or habitations there.
1. What did the researchers find?| A．Humans like the life on the moon. |
| B．People lived in lunar pits and caves. |
| C．Steady temperature exists somewhere on the moon. |
| D．Temperatures in caves and pits vary a lot on the moon. |
| A．Solar heat. | B．Harmful liquids. | C．Universal gases. | D．Micrometeorites. |
| A．Appeared. | B．Developed. | C．Hunted. | D．Escaped. |
| A．It has no such plans. | B．Food there tastes bad. |
| C．Many challenges exist. | D．There is no oxygen. |
2 . Mars is truly a fascinating planet for those of us here on Earth.
The Red Planet has the largest volcano in the solar system-Olympus Mons.
Mars also has an atmosphere, but it is very thin and made up mostly of carbon dioxide. Because of its thin atmosphere and greater distance from the Sun, Mars is much colder than Earth.
Scientists believe that studying Mars can help answer some of the key questions about our planet Earth, or even the universe.
| A．It is roughly 27 kilometres high. |
| B．Missions to Mars have never been easy. |
| C．Mars, however, today has no active volcanoes. |
| D．The temperature at the planet’s surface varies widely. |
| E．However, Mars does have weather, with clouds and winds. |
| F．China will continue to explore the mysteries of the universe. |
| G．It is one of the few planets that we can see with our own eyes. |
3 . The US space agency NASA has revealed an astonishing picture revealing new secrets of the Earth’s home galaxy (星系), the Milky Way. The sun is just one of hundreds of billions of stars that form the huge shape of our galaxy. Our solar system sits in an outlying region but the new image focuses on the centre of the Milky Way, a “noisy” area because of all the crowded stars. Light from this region takes about 26,000 years to reach Earth. For comparison, light takes just eight minutes to reach us from the sun.
The researchers use the data collected by two telescopes that see the sky in ways that are very different from the visible light our eyes can see to form the new image. Most of the data comes from 370 different pictures taken over the past 20 years by NASA’s Chandra X Observatory. This satellite telescope detects X-rays out in space. X-rays are a from of radiation that is sent out when violent events heat matter to temperatures of millions of degrees. Other data comes from the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa, which can detect radio waves from space. These waves have much less energy than X-rays. They are usually produced by cooler material, such as huge clouds of gas between the stars.
The brightest sources include neutron stars which are the cores of huge stars that ran out of fuel and collapsed to city-sized balls of super hot matter. Many neutron stars and black holes jet out gases that appear in the picture as purple streaks (斑纹). Powerful magnetic fields in the area cause the jets to bend as they get further from their source. Astronomer Dr Daniel Wang, who has worked on the image over the past year, said the new picture described “a violent or energetic ecosystem”.
What may be the best title for the text?
| A．Our galaxy’s violent heart | B．An attempt to travel in outer space |
| C．Radio waves from outer space | D．Stars’ purple streaks |
4 . If Mars were the popular kid in school, Venus (金星) would be the unwelcome one sitting in the corner, largely ignored. Venus has nearly the same mass and size as Earth, but being closer to the sun, it gets nearly twice as much heat from the sun.
However, instead of having a climate that is just a warmer version of Earth’s, Venus’s surface and atmosphere are unbearable: clouds of sulphuric acid (硫酸) blanket the planet, while at ground level, it is hot enough to melt lead. Despite this, there is now a sign that Venus may harbour life. Jane Greaves at Cardiff University, UK, and her colleagues recently detected (发现) phosphine (磷化氢) in Venus’s atmosphere, with one potential explanation that it is the by-product of biology. That is because the only way this gas is made on Earth is in laboratories or by microbes (微生物). Though this doesn’t mean it was produced by life on Venus, attempts to find non-biological explanations for its presence have so far failed. Our best way of confirming or rejecting the possibility of life on Venus is to go and have a proper look. While Mars has been the focus of interplanetary (行星间的) exploration efforts lately, the phosphine discovery lets people look at Venus in a new light. As NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted: “It’s time to prioritize Venus.”
In the months and years to come, computer simulations(模拟) will be used to further study the possible chemistries of the atmosphere on Venus. More laboratory experiments will be conducted to try to identify other ways the phosphine there could be produced. However, there is no guarantee that these efforts will reveal the true nature of this substance on Venus. A newly-proposed strategy is to directly sample the atmosphere and surface of Venus. By doing so, we would be able to take direct measurements of phosphine.
The discovery of phosphine in Venus’s atmosphere is a great accomplishment. The scientific efforts may be just what we need to finally refocus on this neglected world. Possibly, the quiet kid in the corner may get the last laugh
1. Which description about Venus is NOT true?| A．It has the unbearable surface and atmosphere. |
| B．It has nearly the same mass as Earth. |
| C．It is almost as large as Earth. |
| D．It has a warmer Earth-like climate. |
| A．This kind of gas is very common. | B．There might exist signs of life. |
| C．Many products can be made with it. | D．Experiments were once conducted there. |
| A．The necessity to analyse phosphine. |
| B．The power of computer simulations |
| C．The importance of observations. |
| D．The approaches to exploring phosphine |
| A．Casual | B．Doubtful. | C．Supportive. | D．Unclear. |
5 . The temperature of the Sun is over 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit at the surface, but it rises to perhaps more than 16 million degrees at the center. The Sun is so much hotter than the Earth that matter can exist only as a gas, except at the core. In the core of the Sun, the pressures are so great against the gases that, despite the high temperature, there may be a small solid core. However, no one really knows, since the center of the Sun can never be directly observed.
Solar astronomers do know that the Sun is divided into five layers or zones. Starting at the outside and going down into the Sun, the zones are the corona, chromosphere, photosphere, convection zone, and finally the core. The first three zones are the regarded as the Sun’s atmosphere. But since the Sun has no solid surface, it is hard to tell where the atmosphere ends and the main body of the Sun begins.
The Sun’s outermost layer begins about 10,000 miles above the visible surface and can be seen during an eclipse (日食) such as the one in February 1979. Other time, the corona can be seen only when special instruments are used on cameras and telescopes to shut out the glare of the Sun’s rays.
The corona is a brilliant, pearly white, filmy light as bright as the full Moon. Its beautiful rays are a sensational sight during an eclipse. The corona’s rays flash out in a brilliant fan. The corona is thickest at the sun’s equator (赤道).
The corona rays are made up of gases streaming outward at tremendous speeds and reaching a temperature of more than 2 million degrees Fahrenheit. The rays of gas thin out as they reach the space around the planets. By the time the Sun’s corona rays reach the Earth, they are weak and invisible.
1. What is the second paragraph mainly about?| A．How the Sun evolved. |
| B．The structure of the Sun. |
| C．Why scientists study the Sun. |
| D．The distance of the Sun from the planets. |
| A．corona | B．chromosphere |
| C．photosphere | D．core |
| A．Paragraph 1. | B．Paragraph 2. |
| C．Paragraph 3. | D．Paragraph 4. |
6 . Earth is constantly being hit by space rocks. Several tons rain down on the planet each day in the form of dust. And larger strikes have created more visible features, including giant craters. But which of our planet’s extraterrestrial scars is the oldest?
Researchers reported on Tuesday in Nature Communications that they have pinpointed it, in Western Australia. It was caused by an impact more than 2.2 billion years ago. Interestingly, that timing roughly coincides with the end of one of our planet’s ice ages. An impact in the ice would have liberated an enormous amount of water vapor, the researchers suggest, perhaps enough to alter Earth’s climate.
The Yarrabubba impact structure, about a day’s drive northeast of Perth, isn’t much to look at today. The original crater, believed to have been roughly 40 miles in diameter, is long gone. That’s because the combined effects of wind, rain, glaciation and plate tectonics have washed several miles off the surface of the planet, effectively erasing the crater. The extent of erosion suggests that the impact structure is very, very old.
Existing clues yield “a pretty giant” age range of about a billion and a half years, said Timmons Erickson, a geochronologist at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston and the study’s lead author. But Dr. Erickson knew that it was possible to do far better, by reading the tiny geological clocks that hide within rocks.
In 2014, Dr. Erickson collected roughly 200 pounds of granitic rocks from Yarrabubba. Back in the laboratory, based on a series of experiments, Dr. Erickson and his team calculated that the Yarrabubba impact occurred 2.229 billion years ago, with an uncertainty of 5 million years. The nextoldest impact structure, Vredefort Dome in South Africa, is over 200 million years younger.
The age of the Yarrabubba impact structure happens to line up with the end of an ice age, which makes for a compelling coincidence, Dr. Erickson said: “Would an impact event like Yarrabubba be enough to terminate a glacial time in Earth’s history?”
To help answer that question, the scientists modeled the effects of a roughly fourmilewide impact object striking ice sheets of different thicknesses. They found that more than 100 billion tons of water vapor would have been jetted into the upper atmosphere. Water vapor is an effective greenhouse gas; suddenly having much more of it in the atmosphere could have caused a warming that ended an ice age, the team suggested. That idea still needs to be tested with climate models, the researchers noted.
Christian Koeberl, a geochemist at the University of Vienna and not involved in the research, agreed. Inferring what might have happened to Earth’s ancient climate is “Where things get a lot more speculative,” he said.
1. Which of the following statements is TRUE?| A．Craters are formed when the Earth is struck by rocks. |
| B．The Yarrabubba impact is a very popular tourist attraction in Australia. |
| C．We cannot see the original crater of the Yarrabubba impact because of erosion. |
| D．The age of the crater can be accurately measured by the degree of the erosion. |
| A．Dr. Erickson has accurately measured Yarrabubba impact with his experiments. |
| B．A sudden release of much water vapor might have resulted in the ending of an ice age. |
| C．Sufficient evidence has proved that the Yarrabubba impact had ended an ice age. |
| D．Considering the uncertainty, Vredefort Dome might still hold the title of being the oldest. |
| A．He criticized the research for its inaccuracy. |
| B．He applauded the novelty of the researchers’ approach. |
| C．What happened to earth’ climate billions of years ago has come to light. |
| D．He acknowledged the difficulty involved in further investigations. |
| A．Earth’s Oldest Impact |
| B．How To Warm a Planet |
| C．Giant Craters On Earth |
| D．Earth’s Geological Erosion |
7 . Let’s go back to Venus
Phosphine (磷化氢) in Venus’ atmosphere could be a sign that life is there. The only way to find out for sure is to go have a look.
If Mars were the popular kid in school,Venus (金星) would be the nerd sitting in the corner, largely ignored. Despite its image, Venus is the brightest object in the sky after the sun and the moon, its orbit taking it closer to Earth than any other planet in the solar system. It has nearly the same mass and size as Earth, but being closer to our star, it gets nearly twice as much heat from the sun.
However, instead of having a climate that is just a warmer version of Earth’s, Venus’ surface and atmosphere are hellish: clouds of sulphuric (含硫的) acid blanket the planet while at ground level it is hot enough to melt lead. Despite this, there is now a sign that Venus may harbour life.
Jane Greaves at Cardiff University, UK and her colleagues recently detected phosphine in Venus’ atmosphere, with one potential explanation that it is the by-product of biology. That is because the only way this gas is made on Earth is in laboratories or by microbes. Though this doesn’t mean it was produced by life on Venus, attempts to find nonbiological explanations for its presence have so far fallen short.
Our best hope for confirming or rejecting the possibility of life on Venus is to go and have a proper look. During the cold war, the USSR sent more than a dozen missions to Venus, including several landers and a pair of balloons, but these ended well before the dawn of the 1990s. Likewise, NASA hasn’t launched a mission dedicated to Venus since the late 1980s. What’s more no US mission has plumbed the depths of its atmosphere and probed its surface since the Pioneer Venus missions that departed Earth in the 1970s.
Other countries have had more recent efforts: the European Space Agency’s Venus Express orbited the planet throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s, while Japan’s Akatsuki orbiter is exploring Venus right now. But these missions were ill-equipped for detecting phosphine or life.
While Mars has been the focus of interplanetary (太阳系内的) exploration efforts of late, with some space agencies focusing on landing more craft and even people on its surface, the phosphine discovery has people looking at Venus in a new light. As NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted:“Its time to prioritize Venus.”
In the months and years to come, computer simulations (模拟) will be used to further study the possible chemistries of the atmosphere on Venus. More observations will be made (and the old ones reanalysed) and laboratory experiments will be conducted to try to identify other ways the phosphine there could be produced. However, there is no guarantee that these efforts will reveal the true nature of this substance on Venus.
A new mission to directly sample the atmosphere and surface would be a watershed moment in planetary science. It need not only look for signs of life, but also answer some of our many questions about Venus, such as why it became so different to Earth and whether it was once habitable.
Some options to do this already exist. There are two NASA missions currently vying for approval. India aims to send an orbiter to Venus in 2023 and private company RocketLab also has plans to visit in that year, hopefully with a probe passing through the planet’s atmosphere.
The discovery of phosphine in Venus’ atmosphere is a great accomplishment. The scientific endeavour it has set in motion is as if a sleeping giant has awakened and it may be just what we need to finally refocus on this neglected world. The quiet kid in the corner may yet have the last laugh.
1. Venus is compared to the nerd sitting in the corner because ________.| A．it’s the brightest object in the sky after the sun and the moon |
| B．its mass and size shape its image as a quiet and neglected kid |
| C．Its orbit takes it close to Earth and the sun in the solar system |
| D．it has been neglected in recent interplanetary exploration efforts |
| A．Its hell-like climate rules out the possibility that there may be life on Venus. |
| B．It’s enveloped in clouds of sulphuric acid and its surface is hot enough to melt lead. |
| C．It has nearly the same mass and size as Earth and is closer to Earth than any other planet. |
| D．Getting about twice as much heat from the sun, its climate is a warmer version of Earth’s. |
| A．the phosphine discovery has shed new light on Venus |
| B．Mars has been the focus of interplanetary exploration efforts of late |
| C．Our best hope for confirming the possibility of life on Venus is to have a look |
| D．Previous missions to Venus have hardly borne significant scientific or biological results |
| A．It has called upon scientists to refocus on Venus. |
| B．It gives a clue as to how to make phosphine out of labs on Earth. |
| C．It has cleared away the doubt regarding whether Venus may habour life. |
| D．It has overturned scientists’ previous perception of how Venus’ atmosphere was formed. |
8 . The US space agency NASA has revealed an astonishing picture revealing new secrets of the Earth’s home galaxy (星系), the Milky Way. The sun is just one of hundreds of billions of stars that form the huge shape of our galaxy. Our solar system sits in an outlying region but the new image focuses on the centre of the Milky Way, a “noisy” area because of all the crowded stars. Light from this region takes about 26,000 years to reach Earth. For comparison, light takes just eight minutes to reach us from the sun.
The researchers use the data collected by two telescopes that see the sky in ways that are very different from the visible light our eyes can see to form the new image. Most of the data comes from 370 different pictures taken over the past 20 years by NASA’s Chandra X Observatory. This satellite telescope detects X-rays out in space. X-rays are a from of radiation that is sent out when violent events heat matter to temperatures of millions of degrees. Other data comes from the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa, which can detect radio waves from space. These waves have much less energy than X-rays. They are usually produced by cooler material, such as huge clouds of gas between the stars.
The brightest sources include neutron stars which are the cores of huge stars that ran out of fuel and collapsed to city-sized balls of super hot matter. Many neutron stars and black holes jet out gases that appear in the picture as purple streaks (斑纹). Powerful magnetic fields in the area cause the jets to bend as they get further from their source. Astronomer Dr Daniel Wang, who has worked on the image over the past year, said the new picture described “a violent or energetic ecosystem”.
1. What can be learned about the Milky Way?| A．The center of it remains unknown. |
| B．The sun isn’t located in the center of it. |
| C．Its center is very peaceful. |
| D．Its center features fewer stars. |
| A．The collection of space data. |
| B．The function of the MeerKAT telescope. |
| C．The differences of space waves. |
| D．The formation of the new image. |
| A．They will absorb surrounding materials. |
| B．They will form super big matter. |
| C．They get bent if away from their source. |
| D．They are likely to explode when superheated. |
| A．Our galaxy’s violent heart | B．An attempt to travel in outer space |
| C．Radio waves from outer space | D．Stars’ purple streaks |
9 . “When I look up at the sky, it looks a bit more amiable because it’s like, maybe somebody is waving,” said Lisa Kaltenegger, director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University, US, and the study’s lead writer.
If a planet circling around one of those 1, 715 stars is home to advanced life, they could easily see that there is life here because of the oxygen on Earth. If that didn’t give it away, then the radio waves we have sent out into space would also be an indicator. In fact, human-made radio waves have already traveled through 75 of the closest stars on Kaltenegger’s list.
What does the underlined word “that” in paragraph 6 refer to?
| A．A planet circling around one of those 1,715 stars. |
| B．Advanced life. |
| C．The oxygen on Earth. |
| D．Human- made radio waves. |
10 . Do stars only appear at night? The answer is no. Venus (金星) is the 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 the earth’s moon, in the night sky. Why is it so bright?
First of all, Venus is the closest planet to the earth. It is also covered by highly reflective (反射的) clouds, which can reflect about 70 percent of the sunlight striking (照射) it, almost twice as much as the earth does. Some people call 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 the earth than Mars and it’s closer to the earth in size. The closer distance to the sun means solar power (太阳能) would be easier to generate 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 (环境) for almost 22 days.
The next step, according to the scientists, is to send a probe (探测器) to Venus by 2025.
1. 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 the earth. |
| A．heat | B．produce | C．spread | D．form |
| A．The closer distance to the earth. | B．The similar size to the 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 |
