You are going to read a list of headings and a text about the Deep Impact by NASA. Choose the most suitable heading from the list for each numbered paragraph.A. Revelation of the nature of cometsB. A perfect representative of the cometsC. Hoping for the bestD. Right time and right place for the ImpactE. What to expect of this Deep ImpactF. Mystery in the heavens On Monday at 1:52 a.m. ET, a probe deployed by a NASA spacecraft 83 million miles from home will smash at 23,000 mph into an ancient comet the size of Manhattan, blasting a hole perhaps 14 stories deep. (41)______. Launched in January, NASA"s $333 million Deep Impact mission is designed to answer questions that scientists have long had about comets, the ominous icebergs of space. This is the first time any space agency has staged such a deliberate crash. Scientists hope images transmitted by the probe and its mother ship will tell them about conditions in the early solar system, when comets and planets, including Earth, were formed. The team hopes to release photos of the impact as soon as they are received from the craft. NASA and observatories across the nation will be releasing webcasts. (42)______. At the very least, NASA says, knowing how deep the probe dives into the comet could settle the debate over whether comets are compact ice cubes or porous snow cones. "We need to dig as deep a hole as possible," says mission science Chief Michael A"Hearn of the University of Maryland. Until now, the closest scientists have come to a comet was when NASA"s Stardust mission passed within 167 miles of the comet Wild 2 last year, collecting comet dust that is bound for a return to Earth in January. The most famous date with a comet occurred when an international spacecraft flotilla greeted Halley"s Comet in 1986. But these quick looks examined only the comets" dust and surface. (43)______. To the ancients, comets were harbingers of doom, celestial intruders on the perfection of the heavens that presaged disaster. Modern astronomers have looked on them more favorably, at least since Edmond Halley"s celebrated 1705 prediction of the return of Halley"s Comet in 1758 and every 75 years thereafter. Today, scientists believe Tempel 1 (named for Ernst Wilhelm Leberecht Tempel, who first spotted it in 1867 while searching for comets in the sky over Marseilles, France) and other comets are windows to the earliest days of the solar system, 4.6 billion years ago, when planets formed from the dust disk surrounding the infant sum (44)______. Deep Impact"s copper-plated "impactor"—a 39-inch long, 820-pound beer-barrel-shaped probe—will be "run over like a penny on a train track" when it crashes, A"Hearn says. The impactor is equipped with a navigation system to make sure it smacks into the comet in the right location for the flyby craft"s cameras. On Sunday, the flyby spacecraft will release the probe. Twelve minutes later, it will beat a hasty retreat with a maneuver aimed at allowing a close flyby, from 5,348 miles away, with cameras pointed. Fourteen minutes after the impact, the flyby spacecraft will scoot to within a mere 310 miles for a close-up of the damage, (45)______. Ideally, everything will line up, and the flyby spacecraft will take images of the crater caused by the impact. It will go into a "shielded" mode as ice and dust batter the craft, then emerge to take more pictures. "The realistic worst case is hitting (the comet) but not having the flyby in the right place," A"Hearn says. "Basically, we have a bullet trying to hit a second bullet with a third bullet in the right place at the right time to watch, I"d love to have a joystick(操纵杆) to control the impactor." Planetary scientists have "no idea" what sort of crater will result, McFadden says. Predictions range from a deep but skinny shaft driven into a porous snow cone to a football- stadium-sized excavation in a hard-packed ice ball. But astronomers should have their answer shortly after impact, which should settle some questions about the comet"s crust and interior. Analysis of the chemistry of that interior, based on the light spectra given off in the impact"s aftermath, could take much longer.
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Plastic is the panacea of the ages. Nearly every man-made object (1)_____ (2)_____ of, or at least (3)_____ its very structure, to this wonder compound. Rain slickers, computer terminals, automobile engine parts, coffee cups (and the sugar stirrers too), breast implants, toy soldiers—they are all made up of plastic, or one of its many (4)_____ Since the (5)_____ of civilization, humankind bas been experimenting (6)_____ a multifunctional material—one that had to be equally strong and lightweight—to carry, contain and protect valuables. (7)_____ it could carry, contain and protect humans too, even better. Generations of tinkerers and scientists set off (8)_____ the challenge, striking gold some 170 years ago. By mixing natural rubber with sulphur they created the world"s most utilized material ever. In developing a (9)_____, malleable and durable substance, the most important inventions of the industrial age were to follow shortly thereafter. The automobile and airplane industries, to (10)_____ just two, owe their very existence to plastic. And, (11)_____ celluloid plastic strips, the Lumiere Brothers would never have brought moving pictures to the big screen. The development of plastic is a story of human (12)_____, ingenuity and luck. (13)_____ the legend now goes, in 1839, the American inventor Charles Goodyear (the famous tyre company would later use his name) was experimenting with the sulphur treatment of natural rubber when he dropped a piece of sulphur-treated rubber on a stove. The heat seemed to give rubber (14)_____ properties. It was stronger, more (15)_____ to abrasions more elastic, much less (16)_____ to temperature, (17)_____ to gases, and highly resistant to chemicals and electric (18)_____ Eyeing this as a cheaply and easily reproduced construction material, a whirlwind of work (19)_____ and the birth of (20)_____ plastic and plastic-derivatives were born from camphor to celluloid to rayon; cellophane, polyvinyl chloride (or PVC); styrofoam and nylon were soon to follow.
A. presentation
B. preservation
C. perseverance
D. persistence
Plastic is the panacea of the ages. Nearly every man-made object (1)_____ (2)_____ of, or at least (3)_____ its very structure, to this wonder compound. Rain slickers, computer terminals, automobile engine parts, coffee cups (and the sugar stirrers too), breast implants, toy soldiers—they are all made up of plastic, or one of its many (4)_____ Since the (5)_____ of civilization, humankind bas been experimenting (6)_____ a multifunctional material—one that had to be equally strong and lightweight—to carry, contain and protect valuables. (7)_____ it could carry, contain and protect humans too, even better. Generations of tinkerers and scientists set off (8)_____ the challenge, striking gold some 170 years ago. By mixing natural rubber with sulphur they created the world"s most utilized material ever. In developing a (9)_____, malleable and durable substance, the most important inventions of the industrial age were to follow shortly thereafter. The automobile and airplane industries, to (10)_____ just two, owe their very existence to plastic. And, (11)_____ celluloid plastic strips, the Lumiere Brothers would never have brought moving pictures to the big screen. The development of plastic is a story of human (12)_____, ingenuity and luck. (13)_____ the legend now goes, in 1839, the American inventor Charles Goodyear (the famous tyre company would later use his name) was experimenting with the sulphur treatment of natural rubber when he dropped a piece of sulphur-treated rubber on a stove. The heat seemed to give rubber (14)_____ properties. It was stronger, more (15)_____ to abrasions more elastic, much less (16)_____ to temperature, (17)_____ to gases, and highly resistant to chemicals and electric (18)_____ Eyeing this as a cheaply and easily reproduced construction material, a whirlwind of work (19)_____ and the birth of (20)_____ plastic and plastic-derivatives were born from camphor to celluloid to rayon; cellophane, polyvinyl chloride (or PVC); styrofoam and nylon were soon to follow.
A. for
B. on
C. in
D. with
Britain"s bosses would have you believe that business in Britain is groaning under red tape and punitive tax levels, inhibiting enterprise and putting British firms at a disadvantage compared with overseas competitors. As usual, reality paints a far different picture from the tawdry image scrawled by the CBI and Tory frontbenchers. Not only do British businesses pay lower levels of corporation tax than their counterparts abroad but they benefit from the most savage legal hamstringing of trade unionism. But boardroom fat cats in Britain have one further advantage over their competitors, which is their total inability to feel any sense of shame. The relatively poor performance since the 1990s of pension investment funds, overseen by the top companies themselves, has brought about a wide-ranging cull of occupational pension schemes. Final salary schemes have been axed in favour of money purchase or have been barred to new employees and, in many companies, staff have been told that they will have to increase pensions fund payments to ensure previously guaranteed benefits. At a time when the government has been deliberately running down the value of the state retirement pension and driving pensioners towards means-tested benefits, the increasingly shaky nature of occupational schemes has brought about higher levels of insecurity among working people. However, it"s not all doom and gloom. There is a silver lining. Unfortunately, that silver lining, doesn"t shine too brightly outside the corridors of corporate power, where directors are doing what they are best at—looking after number one. Bosses are not only slurping up huge salaries, each-way bonuses and golden parachutes. They have also, as TUC general secretary Brendan Barber says, got "their snouts in a pensions trough." If having contributions worth one-thirtieth of their salary each year paid into a pension scheme is good enough for directors, why do most workers only receive one-sixtieth And if companies only donate 6 percent of an employee"s salary for money purchase schemes, why do they give 20430 percent for directors" schemes The answer, which will be no secret to many trade unionists, is that we live in a class- divided society in which big business and the rich call the shots. The Child Poverty Action Group revelation that Britain also has the worst regional social inequality in the industrialised world—second only to Mexico—illustrates how fatuous are claims that this country enjoys social justice and opportunities for all. The stark facts of inequality, based on class, gender, age and race, that are outlined in the CPAG Poverty book ought to dictate a new government approach to tackling poverty. Inequality and poverty cannot be tackled by allowing big business and the rich to dodge their responsibilities to society and to use their positions of power to seize the lion"s share. The author seems to imply that ______.
A. Britain is a class-divided society where the powerful dominates
B. the government adopted an inappropriate way to tackle poverty
C. social inequality is the main feature of the industrialized world
D. British big businesses should shoulder the task of removing poverty
Plastic is the panacea of the ages. Nearly every man-made object (1)_____ (2)_____ of, or at least (3)_____ its very structure, to this wonder compound. Rain slickers, computer terminals, automobile engine parts, coffee cups (and the sugar stirrers too), breast implants, toy soldiers—they are all made up of plastic, or one of its many (4)_____ Since the (5)_____ of civilization, humankind bas been experimenting (6)_____ a multifunctional material—one that had to be equally strong and lightweight—to carry, contain and protect valuables. (7)_____ it could carry, contain and protect humans too, even better. Generations of tinkerers and scientists set off (8)_____ the challenge, striking gold some 170 years ago. By mixing natural rubber with sulphur they created the world"s most utilized material ever. In developing a (9)_____, malleable and durable substance, the most important inventions of the industrial age were to follow shortly thereafter. The automobile and airplane industries, to (10)_____ just two, owe their very existence to plastic. And, (11)_____ celluloid plastic strips, the Lumiere Brothers would never have brought moving pictures to the big screen. The development of plastic is a story of human (12)_____, ingenuity and luck. (13)_____ the legend now goes, in 1839, the American inventor Charles Goodyear (the famous tyre company would later use his name) was experimenting with the sulphur treatment of natural rubber when he dropped a piece of sulphur-treated rubber on a stove. The heat seemed to give rubber (14)_____ properties. It was stronger, more (15)_____ to abrasions more elastic, much less (16)_____ to temperature, (17)_____ to gases, and highly resistant to chemicals and electric (18)_____ Eyeing this as a cheaply and easily reproduced construction material, a whirlwind of work (19)_____ and the birth of (20)_____ plastic and plastic-derivatives were born from camphor to celluloid to rayon; cellophane, polyvinyl chloride (or PVC); styrofoam and nylon were soon to follow.
A. despite
B. with
C. without
D. for