（第三届）

Distance Lends Enchantment to the View

苏海涛 湖北省当阳市当阳一中高二
阅读书目：探索太空 Exploring Space （国家地理科学探索丛书）

    Looking at dark sky at night for a while, you may see a red star. It has dazzling color. People call it “Mars”.

    In the solar system, beyond the third planet, the fourth one is “Mars”. It is a planet which is far away from Earth, about 2 hundred million kilometers on average. It is so charming that many scientists and people want to go there. Yes, distance lends enchantment to the view.

    Exploring space is not as easy as you might think. It is beyond your imagination. Scientists still make great contributions to exploring space and they also get good results. Space exploration is developing successfully. Scientists have made great progress with this project in only a few years’ time.

    In the past fifty years, people have launched many detectors into the unknown universe and planets. However, most of them ended with failure. These detectors still helped the scientists and people to know more about this science. The first time they launched the detectors to Mars was in 1960s. From then on, two super countries, America and the Soviet Union, started a competition to explore Mars. They never stopped launching detectors to Mars. Even if two thirds of them failed. However, it didn’t stop us from exploring space.

    Distance should not be an obstacle to exploring space. At the beginning of 2004. NASA Launched two detectors to Mars, and both of them landed safty. They sent many useful information to Earth. It was really exciting news! Before that, a detector launched by Europe was lost in Universe. It was a shock to the scientific community, but they will never give up.

    As a matter of fact, the purpose of launching so many detectors to space is to find a planet with life and the basic element – water.

    The moon is far away from Earth, but it is the nearest star to Earth. People have been fascinated by the moon since ancient times until 1969 when astronauts from America landed on the moon. They found that the moon was just a satellite, without water, air, atmosphere and life, so people’s fantasies about moon were broken. The moon is a real “Wide-cold Palace”, it also has very bad weather, extremely cold at night and extremely hot during daytime. Nothing can subsist on the moon. When the astronauts landed on the moon, it was as if the distance went from 380 thousand kilometers to zero kilometers. All the beautiful fantasies and legends about moon were broken, so people now aim their eyes on Mars. They hope that one day the astronauts can step on Mars and realize our new dream.

    Since we know the truth of moon, it is not so tempting to us. But poems about the moon can still give us some yearning.

    Compare the beginnings of space travel with exploring space today. The exploration of space today is more useful. Many people are fond of Mars because among the nine planets in the solar system it is the most similar to Earth, so we call them “Brother Planets”. On Mars, there is a thin atmosphere lay and some oxygen. The detectors have found that there once exisited water. Due to the low gravity, the water all ran into space. The exploration of space is not only helping us know more about the unknown space, but also telling us a way to the new science and possibly a homeland. In other words, people may realize the dream of living on another planets.

    Even though we knew moon well now, it has many touching legends n ancient times. Chang’e is a beauty who ate the elixir and then flew to the moon, she lived in the “Wide-Cold Palace” (Moon Palce) with a jade rabbit. Wugang always cut down the sweet-scented osmanthus trees on moon as a punishment. Though these legends are not true, we can still store them in our memories.

    Why do we care so much about other planets? The reason is that the Earth is suffering many troubles. These troubles include: global warming, air pollution, water pollution, the population is quickly increasing, soil deterioration and decreasing natural resoures. The environment is not as good as it once was. All the troubles mentioned above are warnings us that we should pay more attention to the environment, and take care of our mother-Earth. Don’t make it suffer any more troubles. The reason is simple, we have only one Earth. Why not cherish it and make it more beautiful.

    Even Mars is the most similar to the Earth in the solar system, scientists have said that outer-space is not fit for human beings to live in at the moment. Because there is not enough of the necessary thing that we need in space. We can’t find the basic thing-water. On other planets, so we should assume the attitude, “looking for a horse while riding a donkey, but not looking for a horse while discarding a donkey.” Only remember that we have one Earth. It is our duty to protect and cherish it.

    In 1990, NASA launched a telescope called “Hubble” to the orbit of Earth. Without the affect of atmosphere, we can see the stars far away about 200 hundred million light-years. It is the farthest area we can see so far in the universe. People learnt a lot with the telescope, and NASA plans to launch a new telescope to space to take the place of “Hubble”. It is more modern. We can see longer distance with it. We hope that one day we can know all the secrets about the universe.

    October 26th, 2003, in China, the “Divin Land 5” was launched to space successfully and after 21 hours it landed safty. It proved that we have the ability to conquer space. Now scientists in China have started a project to explore the moon. Soon detectors have been launched. We hope a good result. The Chinese scientists plant to launch “Divin land 6” to space next year. We hope that day can come soon.

    Now, we have full confidence in ourselves. However, before we explore space, we should take care of our only homeland, Earth. So that we have the right conditions to explore space and have a good result.

    What will human being’s future like? No one knows. Please remember to cherish everything we own now. Don’t be regretful for the past! Looking back at the history, and looking into the future, so we can dominate our destiny.

    Distance lends enchantment to the view! All my friends, let’s make our world more beautiful!