step by step 第三册Unit 4原文

Part I Warming up A

1.An American spacecraft is traveling to Mars to collect information about the red planet. The

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter left Cape Canaveral in Florida on August 12th. The space vehicle is expected to arrive in March of next year. It is to orbit the planet for at least four years.

2.The U.S. space shuttle Columbia has returned to Earth after an abbreviated stay in space because

of a mechanical problem. The Space Agency ordered the shuttle back to Earth after one of the three power generators failed Sunday. The generators called “fuel cells” provide all of shuttle’s electrical power, and NASA safety rules require the space ship to return to Earth if any fuel cell fails.

3.US space shuttle Discovery has made a successful lift-off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida,

en route to the International Space Station. The shuttle with 5 male and 2 female astronauts onboard will take another section of the half-built International Space Station a little truss, or frame into orbits. It’s scheduled to come back to earth on December 21.

4.The United States Space Agency NASA says it’s given up any real hope of reviving its space

probe on Mars. The spacecraft Pathfinder made its last transmission of scientific data from the

surface of Mars at the end of September, 83 days after landing.

5.The U.S. space shuttle Endeavor is preparing to return home in triumph after completing repairs

on the Hubble Telescope. The Endeavor’s scheduled to land Monday at the Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s Atlantic coast, returning to the site where the mission began eleven days ago. B

Mir means “peace” in Russian. The station had a core block of living quarters and six docking ports for supply ships.

Mir was built by the Soviet Union, which is now Russia. It cost $4.2 billion to build and maintain it. Scientists spent ten years building it, from 1986 to 1996. it weighs 135 tons and has a volume of 9900 cubic feet. It is 63 feet wide and 85 feet long. Mir hosted 104 cosmonauts, astronauts, and visitors. Forty-six flights were made to Mir. Cosmonaut Valery Polyakov holds the record for the longest stay in orbit, which is 438 days. And cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev totaled 747 days between his three separate missions to Mir, which is the longest total for any human staying in space.

The Mir Space station has been sailing through space for 15 years. But Mir doesn’t work very well any longer, and its orbit is failing. It has been replaced by the new International Space Station, where the U.S.A., Russia and many other countries work together. So Russia is going to bring Mir down into the ocean. They will be careful that none of Mir’s pieces hit places where people live.

This event will be big news—as it should be! Since the Russians began building Mir in 1986, it has survived a fire, collisions with other spacecraft, and even attacks on its wiring by microbes that ate metal and glass! We have learned a lot from Mir about how to live and work in space.

The Russian Space Agency guided Mir back to Earth on March 23rd. Fragments of the huge spacecraft splashed down in the South Pacific Ocean just as ground controllers had planned. It was a flawless re-entry. No one was hurt. Mir was truly a remarkable achievement of human ingenuity, breaking uncounted records for human spaceflight. The Mir is gone but will never be forgotten.

Part II News reports A

A team of European astronomers has announced the discovery of the smallest planet ever found outside our own solar system. They are also claiming it’s the most earth-like of all the extrasolar planets so far found, with surface temperatures similar to those here on earth.

Over 200 planets have now been detected beyond our solar system. Most of them are gas giants like Jupiter with only about a dozen thought to be small rocky objects like our earth. Most have been detected by looking for tell-tale wobbles in the movement of their neighbouring star. These wobbles can betray the presence of a planet, tugging at the star as it orbits. The new planet called Gliese 581 C is the smallest detected yet at only 5 times the mass of the earth. It orbits a red dwarf, a small slow-burning star over 20 light years away from us in the Libra constellation. The astronomers have also calculated, taking into account of distance of the new planet are likely to be between 0 and 40 degrees, temperatures which could support water. But what would it be like to stand on Gliese 581 C? Stephane Udry is one of the team that discovered the planet. “For the ground, it’s very difficult: could be rocks, or could be a big ocean. But if you look at the sky, then you would see a big star. Because of the proximity of the star, the size and the scale of that star would be about ten times the full moon, so you would see a big red star illuminating your sight.” The new plant also has some neighbours for company.The same team of astronomers from Switzerland, France and Portugal discovered a planet similar in mass to Neptune in orbit around the same star two years ago. They also announced today the discovery of a third planet in the same solar system. That planet is about 8 times the mass of the earth. And probably very very cold.

Questions:

1.Among over 200 extrasolar planets so far found, how many were small rocky objects like the

Earth? 2.How big is the newly discovered planet Gliese 581 C? 3.Which star does the planet orbit?

4.How many neighbors have been found for Gliese 581C? 5.How big are they? B

Of all the US and Russian spacecrafts that have traveled to Mars since the 1960s, the Polar Lander is to be the first to touch down near the planet’s south pole. The Lander and a companion orbiting craft called the Mars Climate Orbiter, launched in December, are the second installment of a 12-year NASA program (begun in 1996) to unlock the secrets of Earth’s red neighbor. The first installment---the Mars Global Surveyor Orbiter and the Pathfinder Lander---arrived in 1997, with Pathfinder’s robotic rover collecting and analyzing rocks on a desert about half a world away from the polar landing site.

The Lander is to touch down just above the northern-most edge of the south polar ice cap, believed to be a mixture of water and carbon dioxide.

It will use retrorockets to slow its descent. Once on the ground it will employ a robotic arm resembling a child’s toy construction shovel to dig in search of subsurface water. Together with the newest orbiter now on its way to Mars, the Lander will also measure the distribution of water vapor, dust and condensates in the Martian atmosphere.

While the Polar Lander descends next December, it is to release two speeding probes, each smaller than a basketball. These rugged instruments are to crash at about 640 kilometers per hour and bury themselves into the Martian surface about 100 kilometers away from the Lander’s touch-down point.They, too, will be inspecting for subsurface water.

The grand finale of this series of Mars probes is tentatively set for launch in 2006. it would return soil and rock samples to Earth three years later.

Part III Returning to the Moon

Scientists in the UK have expressed their enthusiasm for China’s plans to explore the Moon with robotic spacecraft, and are keen to take part in the adventure.

British scientists are seeking to collaborate with their Chinese counterparts n the Chang’e program.This four-phase program could see the return of astronauts to the moon’s surface for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

Ties between the Chinese and UK space community have been strengthened since a visit to China made by a team of British academics, agency officials, and space scientists earlier this year. At that time discussions took place regarding the UK building scientific instruments for the second phase of China’s lunar missions.

One British academic who participated in the discussions, Professor John Zarnecki of the Open University said, “I think they are looking for significant collaboration. They have got good technology themselves but they will admit that they are fairly new in space science; so they don’t have all of the instrument capabilities and so on.”

China has already established itself as the third space superpower, having successfully launched two manned spaceflights---last year two Chinese astronauts spent five days in orbit before safely returning to Earth. But China’s space ambitions don’t stop there. As well as a lunar landing, plans are being made to set up a permanent space station.

The UK, on the other hand, has had a more modest space program. Only a handful of Britons have broken free of the Earth’s atmosphere. Most recently, UK-born astronaut, Piers Sellers, spent thirteen days on board the American space shuttle Discovery. However, British space exploration has not always gone according to plan. The Beagle 2 probe to Mars disappeared without a trace on Christmas Day 2003. Questions:

1.How many phases are there for China’s Chang’e program? 2.What is the aim of the Chang’e program?

3.What was discussed during UK team’s visit to China earlier this year?

4.How many days did the two Chinese astronauts spend in space before returning to Earth? 5.How many days did Piers Sellers, the UK-born astronaut spend on board Discovery?