What if you touched the moon 倘若能亲手摸到月球

2021-12-08张岚

疯狂英语·新阅版 2021年10期

张岚

自人类首次登陆月球以来，已有十几个人在月球上行走过，但从来没有人直接触碰过月球表面。倘若能亲手摸到月球，会是什么样的感觉呢？

1 Over ten people have walked on the moon since humans landed there， but no one has ever directly touched its surface. Those astronauts wore spacesuits outside the lander. No one ever took off a glove or a boot while standing on the moon.

2 “Once we got inside and took off our suits and gloves， we did have some lunar dust on the floor， and rocks that were not bagged，” said Apollo astronaut Charlie Duke， who walked on the moon in 1972.“On the way home， I collected the rocks floating around the spacecraft. When I got back， I stuck them in a little jar， and then I turned them back into NASA.”

3 While touching lunar rocks inside a spacecraft is one thing， removing a glove and exposing yourself to the vacuum（真空） of space is another. In science fiction， terrible things happen to such astronauts： their blood boils away; their insides get sucked out.

4 But removing a glove wouldn't necessarily be fatal. For the most part， human skin is tough enough to handle brief exposure to a vacuum. If you had a custom spacesuit with a seal around your forearm， you could probably remove your glove during a moonwalk without suffering lasting damage.

5 On Earth， the hottest sun?baked rocks might reach 170 degrees Fahrenheit， but on the moon，where the sun stays visible for weeks at a time， it never gets cloudy， and there's no breeze to carry away the heat—it gets even hotter.

6 If your hand hit a rock， you might find yourself pulling it back instantly in pain. Moon dust may not burn you， but it's no picnic. Like the sand on the earth， moon dust is effectively made of tiny glass shards（尖利的碎片）， whose edges have not been worn down by erosion. As a result， it can be pretty unhealthy.

7 But so long as you avoided touching rocks or metal， washed your hands afterwards and didn't mind some temporary （暂时的） swelling（肿胀）， you could probably touch the moon and survive.

[Reading][Check]

Choose the best answers according to the text.

Detail

1. What did Charlie Duke get from the moon in his adventure in 1972？

A. A little jar.

B. Some lunar dust.

C. His suits and gloves.

D. Some unbagged rocks.

Vocabulary

2. What does the underlined word “fatal” in Para. 4 probably mean？

A. Deadly. B. Harmful. C. Pleasant. D. Dangerous.

Gist