Scientists discover adorable“minimoon” orbiting Earth

難詞探意

1. orbit /'??b?t/ v. 沿軌道運行；圍繞……運動

2. temporarily /'temp?'rer?li/ adv. 暫時地；臨時地

Scientists have discovered what they believe is a lovely “minimoon” orbiting our planet.

The minimoon, called 2020 CD3, was detected on February 15 by scientists at the Catalina Sky Survey.

Kacper Wierzchos, one of the scientists on the study, announced the news, writing， “Earth has a new temporarily captured object—a possible minimoon called 2020 CD3. On the night of Feb. 15, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Teddy Pruyne and I found a 20th magnitude object.”

The minimoon is believed to have entered Earth's orbit around three years ago, and appears to measure between 1.9 and 3.5 metres in diameter.

Mr Wierzchos added, “It's a big deal as out of 1 million known asteroids, this is just the second asteroid known to orbit Earth.”

Only one minimoon has previously been detected—a 0.9-metre-wide asteroid called 2006 RH120, which orbited our planet for 18 months in 2006 and 2007.

However, the researchers believe that 2020 CD3 won't be here for long.

Tony Dunn, an amateur astrophysicist, has created an animation of the minimoon's orbital path,and suggests that it will make its exit in 2020.

While our 2,000-mile-wide Moon has been orbiting Earth for over 4 billion years, minimoons are usually much smaller, and only orbit for months.

Despite this, minimoons are scientifically extremely interesting, according to Robert Jedicke, an astrophysicist at UH Mānoa.

He said, “Minimoons are scientifically extremely interesting. A minimoon could someday be brought back to Earth, giving us a low-cost way to examine a sample of material that has not changed much since the beginning of our solar system over 4.6 billion years ago.”

Reading

Check

1. When did 2020 CD3 probably enter Earth's orbit?

A. In 2006. B. In 2007. C. In 2017. D. In 2018.

2. What benefit could scientists get from minimoons one day?

A. Giving our planet much brightness in the future.

B. Studying the material of them without much cost.

C. Providing scientists with more interesting imagination.

D. Motivating more scientists to join in exploring outer space.

Language

Study

Difficult sentence

Kacper Wierzchos, one of the scientists on the study, announced the news, writing, “Earth has a new temporarily captured object—a possible minimoon called 2020 CD3. On the night of Feb. 15, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Teddy Pruyne and I found the object.”

【翻譯】__________________________________________

【點石成金】本句是一個主從復合句。 Kacper Wierzchos作主語，one of the scientists on the study作同位語，announced the news是謂語和賓語，writing是現在分詞作伴隨狀語，引號后的內容作writing的賓語。