1 . Fans of Star Wars might remember Luke Skywalker’s home planet. Called Tatooine, the planet orbits two stars. A new study suggests similar planets might be the best focus in the search for places that can host life outside our solar system.

Many suns come in pairs called binary stars. Lots of these should have planets orbiting them. That means there could be more planets orbiting around binary stars than around lone stars like our sun. But until now, no one had a clear idea about whether those planets could host life. New computer models suggest that in many cases planets like Tatooine could be fit for life.

The researchers ran computer models of binary stars arranged in thousands of ways. Each had an Earthlike planet orbiting the two stars. The team modeled different sizes and shapes of the stars’ orbit around each other. They then tracked the movement of the planets for up to a billion years of simulated (模拟) time. That showed whether the planets would stay in orbit over timescales that might develop conditions to start life. They also checked to see if the planets stayed in a habitable zone. That’s the region around a star where an orbiting planet’s temperatures are never extremely hot or cold, and water could stay liquid (液态).

“An atmosphere and oceans could make a great difference,” says Mariah MacDonald, who took part in the new modeling work. Plentiful air and water could change the picture. Adding atmospheres to the modeled planets should increase the number of stars that could host life. She hopes to build more advanced models in coming months.

“Models of planets orbiting binary stars could guide future efforts to look for them with telescopes,” says Jason Wright, who studies the physics of stars at Pennsylvania State University. “This is an under-explored population of planets. There’s no reason why we can’t go after them,” he says. “And it might be worthwhile to try.”

1. Why does the author mention Tatooine in Star Wars?

A．To attract movie lovers.	B．To introduce the topic.
C．To remember an old friend.	D．To present a newfound planet.

2. What does the third paragraph mainly tell us about the modeling work?

A．Its preparation.

B．Its application.

C．Its process.

D．Its finding.

3. What does Mariah MacDonald hope to do?

A．Improve the study.	B．Lead a peaceful life.
C．Start another project.	D．Travel into outer space.

4. What is Jason Wright’s attitude towards the models?

A．Doubtful.

B．Positive.

C．Concerned.

D．Uncaring.

2 . For future humans to survive long periods on Mars, growing food on the planet is a must. It would be too costly and risky to rely upon rocket deliveries to meet the food needs of settlers. With this in mind, scientists are exploring ways to improve space farming.

Researchers work in a controlled greenhouse. They have identified a way that could improve crop production in simulated (模拟的) Martian soil, with different crops grown together. The method is called “intercropping”, invented by ancient Maya farmers in what is now Central America.

In their experiments, the researchers grew cherry tomatoes, peas and carrots together in small, round containers. Tomatoes grown in this way produced about double the amount of tomatoes grown alone—or “monocropped”—in the same simulated Martian soil. The tomatoes were also bigger. They flowered and matured earlier, gave more fruit per plant and had thicker stems. The amounts of peas and carrots did not increase with intercropping.

Rebeca Goncalves, an astrobiologist and lead writer of the study, said the research is the first time the intercropping technique was used in space soil, and that it was a big find—one that they could now build further research on. The crops were grown in simulated Martian regolith, a soil with no organic matter —a near-perfect physical and chemical match to real Martian soil.

The researchers added useful bacteria and nutrients. They also controlled the gases, temperature and humidity inside the greenhouse to match conditions expected in a Martian greenhouse. Intercropping involves growing plants with properties that could help each other grow. The method makes the best use of resources including water and nutrients.

The researchers said the tomato plants in intercropping may have benefited from being close to the pea plants. That is because the peas are good at turning nitrogen from the air, with the help of bacteria introduced into the soil, into an important nutrient. Overall, the tomatoes, peas and carrots grew well, though not as well as in Earth soil in the same greenhouse.

1. What is the benefit of intercropping mentioned in the article?

A．Increasing crop yield.	B．Preventing soil pollution.
C．Decreasing sunlight exposure.	D．Reducing water consumption.

2. What role did the peas play in the process of intercropping?

A．Enhancing growth of carrots.

B．Increasing fruit production in tomatoes.

C．Transforming nitrogen into a crucial nutrient.

D．Improving the variety of bacteria introduced into the soil.

3. What was the key finding of the research?

A．Carrots benefited the most from intercropping.

B．The crops grew as well as they would in Earth soil.

C．The presence of peas helped tomatoes produce more fruit.

D．Peas and carrots showed significant growth improvement in intercropping.

4. What is the main idea of the article?

A．Intercropping is developed for growing crops in space.

B．The study found Intercropping resulted in higher tomato yields.

C．Scientists are struggling to find ways to improve crop production in space.

D．Researchers successfully grew some plants in imitated Martian soil using intercropping.

3 . 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.

2. How much did Swift and his students find the asteroid’s orbital period shortened by?

A．1 full minute.	B．2 minutes or so.
C．Nearly 33 minutes.	D．About 32 minutes.

3. What does the author intend to tell us in paragraph 4?

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.

4. What can be the Hera spacecraf’s task?

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.

5 . 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.

2. What does the new study show according to paragraph 2?

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.

3. Which of the following does Dr. Scheller convey?

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.

4. Which word can best describe Zhurong?

A．Ancient.

B．Common.

C．Alarming.

D．Promising.

6 . Keep a Moon Diary

Grab a notebook and your favorite pen or pencil, and you’re ready to begin your very own Moon Diary. You’ll discover all kinds of fascinating things about how the moon travels and notice the various phases of the moon.

Before you start you can collect together some books about the moon to learn about it.     1     And even though you are older you can still try these kinds of books about the moon.

Start your Moon Diary by looking for the moon one night and recording all the things you notice. Note the date, time, and weather. Is the moon full? Half full? Or maybe gone entirely? What color does it seem to be?     2     Take time to look at the moon each night for four weeks. Every night, record what you see. Does the moon appear to be getting bigger? Smaller? Where does the moon appear in the sky? Maybe record what natural sounds you hear when the moon is high in the sky!

    3     Sometimes you will see the moon in the daytime, and other times you may have to wait until nighttime for the moon to rise. You can check when the moon will rise each night by looking for the information online.

It takes about 28 days for the moon to make one complete orbit around the Earth. So after four weeks, you’ll have completed your very own Moon Diary!     4     What do you notice? How does the moon change shape over time? Is the moon rising earlier or later in the sky each day? How does it affect the amount of light in the sky?     5     See where the moon takes you!

A．Look back over what you wrote and drew.

B．You could draw a sad face in the box instead.

C．Write and draw your observations in your notebook.

D．Every day for a month, look in the sky and find the moon.

E．Maybe you’ll decide to keep going with your Moon Diary.

F．Picture books and stories are a great way to introduce a topic.

G．Predict what shape the moon will be each night for the next month.

7 . When astronauts land on Mars, a couple of decades from now, perhaps, they’ll need to find a way to communicate-with each other, with equipment on and around the planet, and with mission control back on Earth. Despite living so far from home, they’ll no doubt want to connect with loved ones, or stream their favorite shows or music.

But setting up a Wi-Fi connection to Earth’s internet won’t be a choice. Earth is simply too far away—around 55 million to 400 million kilometers, depending on where the planets are in their orbits. We will need another strategy.

Establishing good communication equipment is essential for human missions to Mars. Researchers are testing ways to upgrade existing networks, along with some far-out alternatives. For example, NASA’s Psyche mission, which lifted off in October with the job of exploring an asteroid (小行星) between Mars and Jupiter, will also test the communication using lasers. Lasers could carry far more data than the radio waves that have been used from the earliest days of space travel.

There is no strategy which can get rid of the time lag in communications between Earth and Mars; a message moving at the speed of light takes anywhere between 4 and 24 minutes for a one-way trip. In other words, a quick ping to mission control is out of the question, not to mention a WhatsApp call home.

There’s also the issue of solar conjunction (聚合), says Parfitt, when the sun comes between Earth and Mars. This happens for a couple of weeks every two years or so, cutting off communications between the planets. The last one took place in November.

But new approaches could open possibilities that make communications on Mars more like what we experience here on Earth. At least one research team has wondered: What if Mars had its own internet?

1. What discourages Mars to have a net connection to Earth?

A．The Earth is too far to reach.	B．The Earth is hard to identify.
C．The current strategy doesn’t work well.	D．Many planets are blocking the signals.

2. What writing skill is used in paragraph 3?

A．Raising a question.	B．Giving an example.
C．Listing numbers.	D．Comparing facts.

3. What do we know about the communications between Earth and Mars?

A．Laser carries less data than the radio waves.	B．There is no such thing as time lag.
C．It takes only four minutes for a single trip.	D．The process could sometimes be cut off.

4. What is going to be talked about in the following paragraph?

A．The possible mission of the astronauts on Mars.

B．The communication among the astronauts on Mars.

C．The possibility for Mars to have its own network.

D．The opinions given by experienced astronomers.

8 . 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.

2. What do the detected gravitational waves mostly indicate?

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.

3. How did scientists manage to find huge waves’ evidence?

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.

4. What can be inferred about the future study according to the last paragraph?

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.

9 . Space weather forecasters have issued a geomagnetic storm watch through Monday, saying an outburst of plasma from a solar flare could interfere with radio transmissions on Earth. It could also make for great aurora viewing.

There’s no reason for the public to be concerned, according to the alert issued on Saturday by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

The storm could interrupt high-frequency radio transmissions, such as by aircraft trying to communicate with distant traffic control towers. Most commercial aircraft can use satellite transmission as backup, said Jonathan Lash, a forecaster at the center.

Satellite operators might have trouble tracking their spacecraft, and power grids could also see some “induced current” in their lines, though nothing they can’t handle, he said. “For the general public, if you have clear skies at night and you are at higher latitudes, this would be a great opportunity to see the skies light up,” Lash said.

Every 11 years, the sun’s magnetic field flips, meaning its north and south poles switch positions. Solar activity changes during that cycle, and it’s now near its most active phase, called the solar maximum. During such times, geomagnetic storms of the type that arrived on Sunday can hit Earth a few times a year, Lash said. During solar minimum, a few years may pass between storms. In December, the biggest solar flare in years disrupted radio communications.

1. What is the main topic of the passage?

A．The effects of solar flares on Earth.

B．The causes of geomagnetic storms.

C．The work of the Space Weather Prediction Center.

D．The beauty of aurora displays.

2. According to the alert issued by NOAA, what is the public advised to do?

A．Avoid using high-frequency radios.

B．Prepare for possible power outages.

C．Enjoy the aurora if conditions are right.

D．Stay indoors during geomagnetic storms.

3. Why are commercial aircraft not likely to be affected by geomagnetic storms?

A．They use satellite transmission as backup.

B．They communicate with nearby traffic control towers.

C．They are equipped with special radios for such events.

D．They avoid flying during periods of high solar activity.

4. How often do geomagnetic storms of the type mentioned in the passage occur during the solar maximum?

A．Every few months.

B．Once or twice a year.

C．Once every 11 years.

D．Only during solar minimum.

10 . A multinational team of astronomers, led by Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS), has captured a “once-in-a-lifetime” supernova and mapped it in “unprecedented” detail, the WIS said in a statement on Wednesday.

A supernova is a massive star explosion that occurs when a star burns through its fuel at the end of its lifespan, resulting in a brilliant burst of fiery plasma in vibrant colors radiating with the brightness of a hundred million suns. As described in the journal Nature, the team used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to witness in real-time one of the closest supernovae in decades, a red supergiant star exploding in a neighboring galaxy, Messier 101.

The researchers were able, for the first time, to closely follow a supernova while its light emerged from the circumstellar material in which the exploding star was embedded. They then acquired data on the star from times before its demise when it was just a red supergiant star, thus creating the most complete portrait of a supernova, a composite of its last days and death.

The team also found a gap between the mass of material ejected from the star during the explosion and its original mass, suggesting that the supernova left behind a black hole into which the missing mass was swallowed. The researchers concluded that “this study presents a unique opportunity to better understand the mechanisms that lead to the conclusion of a star’s life and the eventual formation of something entirely new.”

1. What is a supernova according to the passage?

A．A star’s natural aging process.

B．A brilliant burst of fiery plasma.

C．A collision between two stars.

D．A black hole swallowing matter.

2. The supernova described in the journal Nature was witnessed in which of the following ways?

A．Through a ground-based telescope.

B．By the Weizmann Institute alone.

C．Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

D．By mapping it in unprecedented detail.

3. What did the researchers discover about the supernova?

A．It left behind a neutron star.

B．Its light emerged from circumstellar material.

C．It exploded in the Messier 101 galaxy.

D．Its mass was similar to that of a red supergiant.

4. What does the study suggest about the missing mass from the supernova?

A．It was ejected into space.

B．It formed a new star.

C．It was swallowed by a black hole.

D．It turned into circumstellar material.