Have You Got the Time?

People today are always thinking about the time.

There never seems to be enough time to do all the things we want to do. Believe it or not, there was a time before time was so important.

It was enough to know that the ________ was out in the sky. That meant it was daytime. During these days when the clock seems to control us, doesn’t that sound kind of nice?

Time can mean a lot of different things. That’s one way we know ________ important it is for us. We have so many words about it! The ________ amount (量) of time we can measure (测量) is called a second (秒). When you put 60 seconds together, you get one ________. If you take 60 minutes, you get one hour. The hands (指针) of the clock go all the way around twice in 24 hours, giving us one day.

If you want to look at time more than one day, you look at a calendar (日历) ________ a clock. There are about 30 days in one month. Some months have an extra day; February has a couple less. There are 12 months in one year. Time ________ stops.

Maybe you know a lot about the city you live in. You may even know some interesting facts about earth, but _______ do you know about Mars? Will there be _______ there just like people on earth?

Mars is the fourth planet from the sun and it’s the most like earth, but it’s much _______ than earth because it’s farther from the sun. It’s also the only planet whose surface can be _______ from earth.

Mars is often called “the red planet” because the rocks on it have a dark _______ colour. There are strong winds on Mars that can _______ dust into the hills.

For many years, people have _______ Mars. They have sent instruments and robots there. Some of the robots got there, _______ most failed.

NASA(美国国家宇航局) sent two robots to Mars two years ago. They wanted to _______ signs of water and life on Mars. Some day, humans will travel to Mars and have an even ________ look at our red neighbour. Maybe it could be you!

The first astronauts(宇航员)

Since the earliest times, people have looked up at the stars, the moon and the planets. Today people use modern machines_______at the sky. This is very different from the situation_______years ago when people could only use their eyes. Perhaps they dreamed of _______   the universe. When did humans first go into space? The story began not so very long ago,_______the firstastronauts were not people-they were animals. Scientists wanted to make travelling to space as _______as possible for humans. So they decided to experiment with animals and test_______in spaceflights. Insects, mice, frogs, dogs and monkeys were some of the animals_______first went into space. Many of them_______, but they helped to make space travel safer for humans. For their great service, we _______forget these animals. Albert I was the first monkey to go into space in 1949. Sadly he died________   his space ship landed back on Earth.