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A BATTLESHIP THEY COULDN'T TORPEDO?The most numerous and interesting of the formations on the lunar surface are the craters. In diameter they vary considerably. Some are less that a yard across, while others are more than 120 miles (the biggest has a diameter of 148 miles). How does the Moon come to be so pockmarked? There are two hypothesis – volcanic and meteoric. Most scientists vote for the latter. Kirill Stanyukovich, a Soviet physicist, has written a whole series of works since 1937 in which he expounds the idea that the craters are the result of bombardment of the Moon for millions of years. And he really means bombardment, for even the smallest celestial body, when it is involved in one of those fastest head-on collisions so common in the cosmos behaves itself like a warhead charged with dynamite, or even an atomic warhead at times. Instant combustion takes place on impact, turning it into a dense cloud of incandescent gas, into plasma, and there is a very definite explosion. Объяснять; раскаленный. The surprising thing is that however big the meteorites may have been which have fallen on the Moon (some have been more than 60 miles in diameter), and however fast they must have been travelling (in some cases the combined speed was as much as 38 miles per second), the craters they have left behind are for some odd reason all about the same depth, 1.2–2 miles, although they vary tremendously in diameter. For such a big hole, it is too shallow. Furthermore, the bottom of the crater is convex, following the curve of the lunar surface. If you were to stand in the middle of the crater you would not even be able to see the soaring edge – it would be beyond the horizon. A hollow that is more like a hill is a rather strange affair, perhaps. Выпуклый; вздымающийся, взлетающий.
Not really, if one assumes that when the meteorite strikes the outer covering of the moon, this plays the role of a buffer and the foreign body finds itself up against an impenetrable spherical barrier. Only slightly denting the 20-mile layer of armour plating, the explosion flings bits of its «coating» far and wide. Непроницаемый.
Ex. 5. Use the clichés to express your stance: I am inclined to think that … … I pin my hopes on … … Though the author tends to … I tend to … The author’s assumption seems a bit dodgy … though … Ex. 6. Read the text. Be ready to speak on the issues. Give your comments. A SPACESHIP COME TO GRIEF? Now let us consider the chemical peculiarities of the lunar rock. Upon analysis, American scientists have found chromium, titanium and zirconium in it. These are all metals with refractory, mechanically strong and anti-corrosive properties. A combination of them all would have inevitable resistance to heat and the ability to stand up to means of aggression, and could be used on Earth for linings for electrical furnaces. Неизбежный. If a material had to be devised to protect a giant artificial satellite from the unfavorable effects of temperature, from cosmic radiation and meteorite bombardment, the experts would probably have hit on precisely these metals. In that case it is not clear why lunar rock is such an extraordinarily poor heat conductor – a factor which so amazed the astronauts? Wasn't that what the designers of the super-sputnik of the Earth were after? From the engineers point of view, this spaceship of ages long past which we call the Moon is superbly constructed. There may be a good reason for its extreme longevity. It is even possible that it predates our own planet. At any rate, some pieces of lunar rock have proved older than the oldest on Earth, although it is true, this applies to the age of the materials and not of the structure for which they were used. And from the number of craters on its surface, the Moon itself is no chicken. Долголетие; более раннего происхождения.
It is, of course, difficult to say when it began to shine in the sky above the Earth, but on the basis of some preliminary estimates one might hazard a guess that it was around two thousand million years ago. We do not, of course, imagine that the moon is still inhabited, and probably many of its automatic devices have stopped working, too. The stabilisers have ceased functioning and the poles have shifted. Even though the moon keeps that same side turned towards us, for some time it has been unsteady on its own axis, on occasion showing us part of its reverse side which were once invisible to observers on the Earth – for example, the Selenites themselves if they made expeditions here. Обитаема; перестать.
What is the Moon today? Is it a colossal necropolis, a «city of the dead,» where some form of life became extinct? Is it a kind cosmic Flying Dutchman? A craft abandoned by its crew and controlled automatically? We do not know and we shall probably not. Вымерший.
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