Taking a picture of Mars is not easy.Once light bounces off the planet,it can take between 3 to 22 minutes to travel to Earth — so there aren't truly"live"images of Mars.
But on Friday afternoon,the European Space Agency will offer the closest thing:the first"livestream"of Mars —a rare,almost real-time look into space on YouTube,which posts pictures of the planet every 50 second s as they beam down directly from the camera mounted(安裝) on the agency's Mars Express orbiter(軌道飛行器).We can get a firsthand look at Mars on Friday.
"During Friday's one-hour livestream,the time between the images being taken from orbit around Mars and appearing on your screen will be about 18 minutes,"James Godfrey,the spacecraft operations manager at the ESA's mission control center,said in a statement."That's 17 minutes for light to travel from Mars to Earth in their current
configuration,and about one minute to pass through the wires and servers on the ground."
"Normally,we see images from Mars and know that they were taken days before.I'm excited to see Mars as it is now — as close to a Martian(火星人)'now' as we can possibly get!"
In 50-second intervals,the camera shoots across Mars,showing a side of the planet entering night,as well as some clouds billowing out on the corner.The livestream celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Mars Express mission,which was launched in 2003 to better understand the planet,as well as search for traces of water.
It's with this camera,originally meant for engineering purposes,that we'll get"live"images on Friday evening from 18:00 CEST in the first MarsLIVE.What makes this unique,is that it's a one-hour livestream from Mars—but don't expect a detailed view of the Red Planet!
(1)What can we learn from this text?
D
D
A.Watching the MarsLIVE,people will have a completely real-time view of the Mars.
B.The audience can watch the MarsLIVE thanks to the camera on the Mars.
C.About 20 years ago,the ESA launched an orbiter to search for Martians.
D.The MarsLIVE is to celebrate the launch of the Mars Express mission in 2003.
(2)What does the underlined word"configuration"in paragraph 3 mean?
A
A
A.Equipment.
B.Orbit.
C.Planet.
D.Spacecraft.
(3)What is the text mainly about?
C
C
A.The live images taken from orbit around Mars.
B.The 20th anniversary of the Mars Express mission.
C.The first"livestream"of Mars to be shown on YouTube.
D.A rare and almost real-time look into space on YouTube.
(4)What does the last paragraph imply?
C
C
A.The camera was originally used to shoot the Mars.
B.We can get truly live Mars images in the first MarsLIVE.
C.Detailed images about the Mars can't be ensured.
D.The unique MarsLIVE will live up to viewers' expectation.