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| Words in the News
Monday 27 May 2002
Vocabulary from the news. Listen to and read the report then find explanations of difficult words below.
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Ice reservoirs found on Mars
Summary: A spacecraft orbiting Mars has detected large quantities of water-ice just below the surface of the planet. The finding, by the American space agency NASA, is described as one of the most important discoveries ever made about the planet.
This report from David Whitehouse.
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| | The News | |
| | | This dramatic discovery was made by sensors on the Mars Odyssey spacecraft that has been orbiting the Red Planet since late last year. It has found evidence that just below the surface, across great swathes of the planet, there is water-ice.
This finding will answer a question that has puzzled Mars researchers for decades. The first close-up pictures of Mars from spacecraft showed a world of deserts and craters, canyons and dried-up riverbeds. Obviously Mars was wet and warm in the distant past, but where did all the water go?
The answer appears that it is in the regolith - the layer of loose rock and dust on the surface. There is so much water that if it were all to melt, Mars would become a waterworld.
Water is essential for life as we know it, and researchers speculate that if life had developed during Mars's warm period, it might still be clinging to the moisture beneath the ground.
It also means that astronauts would have nothing more to do than dig to get drinking water.
The more we discover about Mars, the more the search for life on its surface becomes a top scientific priority, and the more it beckons human footprints.
David Whitehouse, BBC
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| | The Words
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| | | sensors
scientific instruments that measure changes - for example, in heat or light
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| | | orbiting
travelling around
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| | | great swathes of
large areas of
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| | | water-ice
water that has frozen
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| | | craters
large holes
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| | | canyons
long, narrow valleys with steep sides
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| | | dried-up riverbeds
the ground over which rivers once flowed
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| | | a waterworld
completely covered in water, flooded
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| | | clinging to
living in - if you cling to something, you hold onto it tightly
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| | | beckons human footprints
becomes a reason for going there - if you beckon someone, you make a signal for them to come to you
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