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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.
It can be inferred from the passage that the rover’s investigation
选项 A、is likely to start with the study of the rocks on Mars.
B、is determined on the reconstruction of the climate on Mars.
C、started immediately after the rover’s perfect landing.
D、can only begin after a week’s preparation on the ground.
答案A
解析 推理判断题。根据题干关键词the rovers investigation定位至第四段第二句。该句指出，探测器着陆造成的深坑很有可能是进行科学研究的第一片区域。并且在第三段的最后一句指出，探测器计划通过研究附近山上的岩石层来重现火星早期的气候和环境，并判断火星是否曾经适合生命居住。因此，探测器的研究很有可能是从研究岩石开始。[A]与原文意思相符，故为答案。
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