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  3. A conspiracy theorist might think that NASA’s newest Mars rover, the Curiosity, is actually just in the middle of a desert on Ea

A conspiracy theorist might think that NASA’s newest Mars rover, the Curiosity, is actually just in the middle of a desert on Ea

admin2015-03-25  11
问题     A conspiracy theorist might think that NASA’s newest Mars rover, the Curiosity, is actually just in the middle of a desert on Earth. Over the weekend, the Curiosity, which landed early on Aug. 6 after an eight-month flight, started sending back a 360-degree high-resolution panorama of its surroundings. As the accompanying NASA news release noted, the images show "a landscape closely resembling portions of the southwestern United States. "
    At a news conference on Wednesday, John P. Grotzinger, a professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology who serves as the mission’s project scientist, compared the view with a place just a few hours’ drive from Pasadena, Calif. , and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the rover’s birthplace. "You would really be forgiven for thinking that NASA was trying to pull a fast one on you," he said, "and we actually put a rover out in the Mojave Desert and
took a picture—a little L. A. smog coming in there. " He added, "To a certain extent, the first impression you get is how Earth-like it seems. "
    Where the Curiosity actually sits is a 96-mile-wide crater named Gale near the Martian equator. To the north, the images show part of the crater rim that is believed to have been eroded by flowing water. To the south is a 3.4-mile-high peak that the scientists call Mount Sharp, which Curiosity is meant to reach and to climb. By investigating the layers of sedimentary rock on Mount Sharp, mission scientists hope to reconstruct the climate and environment of early Mars and tell whether it could have been once been habitable for life.
    The photos also show marks that Curiosity has made at the landing site. As Curiosity was lowered to the surface of Mars, blasts from the descent-stage engines created indentations in the nearby soil, exposing the bedrock below. This exposed bedrock is likely to be one of the first areas of scientific exploration on the rover’s planned two-year journey.
    "What’s cool about this is that we got some free trenching," Dr. Grotzinger said. After the flawless landing, the first week of operations of the rover on the ground also proceeded almost perfectly, too, as engineers started checking out the rover’s system, deployed the high-gain antenna, and raised the mast that holds the cameras.
    So far, no significant trouble has arisen. The weather instrument experienced a problem that engineers figured out a day later. The rover’s internal temperatures are slightly warmer than expected, possibly because the crater is warmer than predicted or because NASA’s computer models of Curiosity were not quite right. Worries about overheating could put constraints on when certain instruments can be used. But the heat is also a boon, reducing the energy Curiosity needs to warm up its joints and wheels before moving.
What is the main idea of the passage?
选项 A、How earthlike the surface of Mars is.
B、The success landing of Curiosity.
C、NASA’s achievement in investigating Mars.
D、How far the mission of Curiosity has gone.
答案D
解析 主旨大意题。文章第一段中就给出了火星探测器“好奇号”已经成功着陆并发回高清照片的消息；第二段穿插了火星表面与地球表面极为相似的内容；第三段介绍了探测器在火星上的位置；第四段说明了探测器的着陆情况；第五段指明目前工程师们已经做好的工作；第六段说明了探测器目前的工作状态。因此，全文始终围绕着火星测控器这一项目展开，为读者详细介绍了火星探测任务的进展情况及现状。因此[D]与文意相符，故为答案。
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