номер 2, страница 46 - гдз по английскому языку 7 класс учебник Goldstein, Jones

2 Read an article about the Moon. Check your answers to Exercise 1.

THE MOON

Objects that orbit planets are called natural satellites or moons. Jupiter has 67 of them, but the Earth has only one – the Moon. Each month, this object, the second brightest in the sky, goes through its phases – from the new moon we can’t see to the shining ball that we call the full moon. But where did our nearest neighbour come from?

Scientists believe that something hit the Earth 4.6 billion years ago. The pieces which broke away then came together to make the Moon. The Moon is much smaller than the Earth and conditions there are very different: temperatures can get as high at 127o c and fall as low as -173o c. The Moon has little or no atmosphere to protect it, which means that it is often hit by asteroids. This explains why the Moon’s surface has lots of big holes called craters.

One of the most interesting things about the Moon is the way it affects life on Earth. We can see this whenever we go to the beach – the Moon’s gravity makes the level of the Earth’s seas go up and down in what we call tides.

On 21^st July 1969, the American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon. It was one of the great achievements of the 20^th century, but what about the future? We will certainly return to the Moon one day. NASA and the European Space Agency will probably send more astronauts to the Moon over the next 20 years. Such trips might not interest as many people as those of the 1960s and 1970s, but it is exciting to think that there will be some kind of base on the Moon – we may even create lunar cities. We definitely won’t live on the Moon all the time, but we might go there for a holiday.

FACT! The Moon plays a significant role in Kazakh names, symbolizing beauty, purity, and wisdom