首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Anyone who lives in the eastern part of the United States or Canada and gazed skyward on Tuesday evening may have noticed someth
Anyone who lives in the eastern part of the United States or Canada and gazed skyward on Tuesday evening may have noticed someth
admin
2010-01-10
46
问题
Anyone who lives in the eastern part of the United States or Canada and gazed skyward on Tuesday evening may have noticed something strange in their west-northwest sky.
At around 9 p.m. ET, a small, bright, silvery circular cloud of light suddenly appeared. Over the next 25 minutes, the cloud appeared to gradually expand and fade, finally becoming invisible to the unaided eye. Those who saw it, wondered exactly what it might have been.
John Bottle, a well-known amateur astronomer with over four-decades of experience of sky observing first caught sight of the cloud at 9:03 p. m. from his home in Stormville, New York. Initially, he thought the cloud was as bright as zero or first magnitude and upon examining it carefully with binoculars, thought that it "... resembled the petals of a day lily." By 9:30 p. m. , he reported that the cloud had faded completely from his view.
From the North Fork of Long Island, Bill Bogardus and his wife were out observing when they took note of the cloud "... about the size of the moon" in the northwest sky. "It was a roundish, yet not all that round, object drifting towards our location very slowly, slower than most satellites because it took at least twenty minutes to move from where we first saw it to pretty much our zenith."
After studying it for a while through an 8-inch telescope, Bogardus noticed two points of light, "... like a satellite would appear, in line and above a jet of gas that seemed to come from them."
Observing from Ithaca, New York, Joseph Storch used 7×50 binoculars on the cloud and reported a star-like point or nucleus and four butterfly shaped petals radiating outward. Other reports, received as far west as Toronto, tell of people who initially thought that what they were seeing was the moon behind a cloud. Typical was the comment: "For a second I thought it was the moon, then I realized the moon was in the east."
What was it?
Quite a few people who saw this strange, expanding cloud thought that it might have been an atmospheric experiment sent aloft by a sounding rocket. Over the years, those living along the East Coast have been accustomed to occasionally seeing unusual brightly colored clouds caused when exotic chemicals such as barium and trimethylaluminum were released into the Earth’s ionosphere by rockets launched from NASA’s Wallops Island, Virginia site.
NASA was indeed responsible for the unusual cloud formation on Tuesday night, but it was not part of a planned experiment.
It was, in reality, a fuel dump of the Centaur stage involved in the NRO-1 satellite launch from Cape Canaveral late Tuesday afternoon. Dumping excess fuel is the usual practice for all Centaur-booster assisted launches. It happens after spacecraft separation; the fuel bleeding off from a Centaur upper rocket stage on its second orbit after launch. Being just after nightfall, the cloud of fuel was still sunlit at that altitude.
And those who were fortuitously outside when the dump occurred, were the ones who saw this very unusual sight!
According to the passage, we can infer those who saw the unusual sight ______.
选项
A、inside their houses
B、outside their houses
C、inside NASA’s site
D、outside NASA’s site
答案
B
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://www.kaotiyun.com/show/HDsO777K
本试题收录于:
BEC中级阅读题库BEC商务英语分类
0
BEC中级阅读
BEC商务英语
相关试题推荐
•Lookatthestatementsbelowandatthefiveextractsontheoppositepagefromanarticlegivingadvicetopeoplesettingup
•Readthistexttakenfromanarticleaboutthedifferencebetweeninternalizationandglobalization.•Choosethebestsentence
•Readthearticlebelowaboutaproduct.•Inmostofthelines41-52thereisoneextraword.Itiseithergrammaticallyincorre
•Readthearticlebelowaboutaproduct.•Inmostofthelines41-52thereisoneextraword.Itiseithergrammaticallyincorre
•ReadthearticlebelowaboutproductivitygrowthofthenewentrantsinEU.•ChoosethebestwordtofilleachgapfromA,B,C
Whyshouldjob-seekerscareaboutapotentialemployer’scorporateculture?Aren’ttheremoreimportantfactorstoconsider,(2
Whyshouldjob-seekerscareaboutapotentialemployer’scorporateculture?Aren’ttheremoreimportantfactorstoconsider,(2
AscottInternationalisthelargestservicedresidentialoperatorintheworld.ManagingtheAscott,theSomersetandCitadi
Readthearticlebelowabouttherelationshipbetweentradeanddevelopment.ChoosethecorrectwordtofilleachgapfromA,B,
随机试题
销售部助理小王需要针对公司上半年产品销售情况进行统计分析,并根据全年销售计划执行进行评估。按照如下要求完成该项工作:在“按月统计”工作表中,利用公式计算1月~6月的销售达标率,即销售额大于60000元的人数所占比例,并填写在“销售达标率”行中。要求以百
用卡钳测量较硬工件外边缘距离时,通常使用()。
脾主升清是指()
A、收湿生肌B、攻毒蚀疮C、清肺化痰D、开窍醒神E、劫痰平喘炉甘石除明目去翳外,又能()
不属于设备工程设计准备工作的是( )。
支架模板,脚手架支搭完成后,必须经()后,方可交付使用。
下列关于鼠标操作中各种指针的说法错误的是()。
《义务教育语文课程标准(2011年版)》对课程性质做了怎样的规定,请简要回答。
林肯颁布《解放黑人奴隶宣言》规定的范围是()。
Peoplewhowanttoavoidweightgainhavetobalancethenumberofcaloriestheyeatwiththenumberof【C1】______.Toloseweigh
最新回复
(
0
)