Text 7. What size collision formed the moon.

Text 6. THE “OLD LADY” OF THE UNIVERSE

Japanese scientists discover the oldest of the known galaxies

Small wonder that the historic find is in the Coma Berenices (Berenice's Hair) constellation, somewhere between the Hunting Dogs and the Virgin. That part of the Universe contains the northern galaxy pole with a fantastic concentration of various galaxies. This is the place to look for the astronomical superlatives: the biggest, the oldest, the newest, the brightest, the most solid, etc. The galaxy owes its name to a perfectly factual character, the wife of Pharaoh Ptolemy III (3d century B.C.), who donated her luxuriant hair to the Temple of Venus in honor of her husband's victory. When her gift disappeared, antique astronomers hastened to soothe the lady with tales of Zeus taking her hair to heaven.

Modern scientists used state-of-the-art instruments and managed to figure out that their find had been formed 900 million years later than the Universe itself.

This is a perfect confirmation of old astronomic theories that put the oldest galaxies' age at 1/15 of the age of the Universe, which is currently believed to be 13.5 to 14.5 billion years.

The Japanese have been able to make their discovery thanks to the powerful telescope named Subaru (The Pleiades), in the National Astronomical Observatory on the top of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, which is the highest island mountain in the world rising to over 4,000m above sea level. The telescope took eight years to build, from 1991 to 1999. Subaru has already provided Japanese astronomers with singularly accurate pictures of Uranium, its ring system and main satellites, and allowed them to watch anomalous phenomena involving protostars and the emergence of supernovas.

But why should scientists be so thrilled about these astronomical "old ladies," including their latest discovery? Especially since it does not seem to have much longer to live: Before long this galaxy may be replaced by a black hole. Apparently, it is precisely old galactic entities that provide the best opportunity for studying the way of post-Big Bang galaxy clustering and the first such clusters emerging out of the gas the Big Bang produced.

(Moscow News, April, 2003)

I. Read the text and outline its logical parts.

II. Give a headline to each part of the text.

III. Write the summary of the text in English.

The favourite theory to explain the origin of the Moon is that a large, rogue planetoid about the size of Mars collided with Earth some 4.5 billion years ago. An 'oblique impact' or sideswipe by the intruder would have vaporised the upper regions of Earth's crust and mantle, spraying the material out into space. From a gaseous disk, the material slowly formed a series of hot moonlets which eventually came together into the single, large Moon we see today.

The main problem with this theory seems to lie with the size of the original impactor. New modelling work at the University of Colorado in Boulder suggests that a Mars-size intruder would be too small to create the required volume of material. Instead, the team suggest that the Earth collided with an object 2.5 to 3 times the mass of Mars, leading to the formation of the Moon just 15,000 miles above our planet.

There is, however, still a problem with this scenario. The larger impact results in an Earth that is spinning too quickly. The new model produces a system with roughly twice as much rotational spin as the Earth-Moon system exhibits today. The older version provides the right amount of spin but not enough raw material. It seems that our nearest neighbour is determined to hold onto its secrets for a while longer.

Peter Bond

ASTRONOMY NOW / SEP 1997

I. Read the text and note the important details.

II. Identify the sentences:

1. with the Subjunctive Mood;

2. with the Infinitive Construction.

III. Make a written translation of the text.

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