In our solar system (太阳系), some planets have a great number of moons (卫星) while some have none. Recently scientists have discovered 12 more moons going around Jupiter (木星). That means Jupiter now has a total of 92 moons, more than any other planet in our solar system.
Scott Sheppard was a member of the team that made the latest discoveries. The new moons were found using telescopes (望远镜) in Hawaii and Chile. Sheppard said, “I hope we can take clear photos of one of these moons in the near future to better understand it.”
Jupiter’s newly discovered moons are between one and three kilometers in size. They have not yet been named, as half of them are too small—less than 1.5 kilometers—to own a name.
Sheppard has already taken part in 70 moon discoveries for Jupiter. He also discovered moons going around Saturn (土星). It had been the planet with the most moons until the most recent announcement. It now is known to have 83 moons. Saturn held the top position since 2019 when Sheppard’s team discovered 20 more moons. Before that, Jupiter was the solar system’s leader with 79 moons.
Sheppard expects to keep adding moons to both Jupiter and Saturn in the future. Uranus and Neptune also have many small moons. But they are much farther from Earth, so discovering new moons around those planets is more difficult.
This year, the European Space Agency has sent a spaceship to explore Jupiter. The spaceship, called JUICE, took off in April. The task is to make further research on Jupiter and its three large moons.
【小题1】According to Paragraph 2, Sheppard wanted to ________ in the near future.| A．get to new moons | B．take clear photos of one moon |
| C．do nothing | D．study everything |
| A．they are hard to study | B．they are newly discovered |
| C．some of them are not big enough | D．they are ugly |
| A．63. | B．93. | C．101. | D．332. |
| A．It is easy to discover all moons. | B．JUICE is trying to find out new planets. |
| C．More research is being done on Jupiter. | D．People all like new moons. |
