阅读unit 2, reading 4

3.Viking
The term Viking (fromOld Norsevíkingr) is customarily used to refer to theNorse(Scandinavian)explorers,warriors,merchants, andpirateswho raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas ofEuropeand theNorth Atlanticislands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century. TheseNorsemenused their famedlongshipsto travel as far east asConstantinopleand theVolga RiverinRussia, and as far west asIceland,Greenland, andNewfoundland, and as far south asAl Andalus. This period of Viking expansion – known as theViking Age– forms a major part of themedievalhistory ofScandinavia,Britain,Irelandand the rest ofEuropein general.
2.Beagle
Beagle 2was an unsuccessfulBritishlanding spacecraft that formed part of theEuropean Space Agency's 2003Mars Expressmission. It is not known for certain whether the lander reached the Martian surface; all contact with it was lost upon its separation from the Mars Express six days before its scheduled entry into the atmosphere. It may have missed Mars altogether, skipped off the atmosphere and entered an orbit around the sun, or burned up during its descent. If it reached the surface, it may have hit too hard or else failed to contact Earth due to a fault. TheBeagle 2 is named after theHMS Beaglewhich twice carriedCharles Darwinduring expeditions which would later lead to thetheory of evolution.HMS Beaglewas the ship that tookDarwinon his voyage around the world in the 1830s and led to our knowledge about life on Earth making a real quantum leap. It is hoped that Beagle 2 will do the same thing for life on Mars.
教学内容（要点）
Text I:A Letter to Beagle
Text II:A History of South Pole Exploration
徐州工程学院教案纸
Part I: Background Information
1.Mars Expressห้องสมุดไป่ตู้
Mars Express is aspace explorationmission being conducted by theEuropean Space Agency(ESA). The Mars Express mission is exploring the planetMars, and is the first planetary mission attempted by the agency. "Express" originally referred to the speed and efficiency with which thespacecraftwas designed and built. However "Express" also describes the spacecraft's relatively short interplanetary voyage, a result of being launched when the orbits of Earth and Mars brought them closer than they had been in about 60,000 years.
to grasp the reading skills of skimming and scanning;
教学重点：to learn about space exploration;
to learn aboutsouth pole and north pole exploration;
教学难点：to grasp the reading skills of skimming and scanning;
In addition to scientific objectives, the Mars Pathfinder mission was also a "proof-of-concept" for various technologies, such asairbag-mediated touchdown and automated obstacle avoidance, both later exploited by theMars Exploration Rovers. The Mars Pathfinder was also remarkable for its extremely low price relative to other unmanned space missions to Mars. Originally, the mission was conceived as the first of theMars Environmental Survey(MESUR) program.
Launched on December 4, 1996 byNASAaboard aDelta IIbooster a month after theMars Global Surveyorwas launched, it landed on July 4, 1997 onMars'Ares Vallis, in a region calledChryse Planitiain theOxia Palus quadrangle. Thelanderthen opened, exposing the rover which conducted many experiments on the Martian surface.
4.Pathfinder:a space exploration probe
TheMars Pathfinder(MESUR Pathfinder), later renamed theCarl Sagan Memorial Station, is an American spacecraft that landed the firstroving probedeployed on another planet. It consisted of alanderand a lightweight (10.6 kilograms/23 pounds) wheeledroboticrover namedSojourner.
This mission, besides being the first of a series of missions to Mars that included rovers (robotic exploration vehicles), was the most important since theVikingslanded on the red planet in 1976. Although theSoviet Unionsuccessfully sent rovers to the Moon as part of theLunokhod programin the 1970s, its two attempts to send rovers in itsMars probe programfailed.
Mars Express consists of two parts, the Mars Express Orbiter and theBeagle 2, alanderdesigned to performexobiologyand geochemistry research. Although the lander failed to land safely on the Martian surface, the Orbiter has been successfully performing scientific measurements since early 2004, namely, high-resolution imaging and mineralogical mapping of the surface, radar sounding of the subsurface structure down to the permafrost, precise determination of the atmospheric circulation and composition, and study of the interaction of theatmospherewith theinterplanetary medium.