HomeMy WebLinkAboutRead Aloud Book Gr. 1-Lesson 16In 1969, the United States sent a rocket ship from Earth to the Moon. The ship
carried only three men. But this was a trip that will be remembered in history forever.
This was the fi rst time that human beings stepped on the surface of the Moon. The
trip was made possible by a huge crew of scientists. This team of scientists had
worked for many years to build the rocket that carried the astronauts to the Moon.
It was not an easy job.
As they built the rocket, the scientists had many problems to solve. The Moon is
about 240,000 miles from Earth. That’s a long way to travel. But the hardest part
of the trip was probably the fi rst few miles. That was the part where the ship had to
break the force of gravity. Gravity is the force that pulls objects toward Earth. The
scientists had to build a rocket that was strong enough and fast enough to power
through that force and fl y away from Earth.
The rocket ship that carried the men to the Moon was called Apollo 11. Its rocket
engines had to be extremely powerful to lift off the ground, against the pull of
gravity. The crew had to create many special tools and instruments to keep the
ship safe from harm. Some of the most important tools they built were special
computers. These had programs that told the astronauts what to do.
On July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 made its way through space until it had almost
reached the Moon. Then, from the Apollo 11, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz
Aldrin took a smaller ship, called the Eagle, all the way to the Moon. They landed
soon after. When Armstrong stepped out, he became the fi rst person ever to step
onto the Moon’s surface. Aldrin followed him.
Although Armstrong and the other astronauts with him are famous for this trip,
there were thousands of people who worked long and hard to make it happen.
COMPREHENSION Why was it hard for the Apollo 11 to leave the surface
of Earth? How do you think the three men felt while they were on the way to
the Moon?
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Long ago, people who wanted to study the sky could only use their eyes and
look up. Then, about four hundred years ago, the telescope was invented. The
telescope is a long tube that is narrow on one end and wide on the other end.
There is a combination of glass and mirrors inside the tube. A telescope helps
faraway things look much closer. People look through the tube to see the stars.
Astronomers are scientists who study outer space. They use telescopes. But
today they don’t simply look into one end of a tube pointed at the sky. They
spend more time working with computers. Over the years, telescopes have
become advanced machines that can tell us much more about outer space
than the old tubes could. Some telescopes, like the Hubble Space Telescope,
stay in outer space. These telescopes give clearer pictures than the telescopes
on Earth. Astronomers can send signals, or commands, to space telescopes to
point them in the right direction.
When an astronomer wants to aim a telescope at a faraway star, he or she
enters some numbers into a computer from a keyboard. The numbers are a
code for where the star can be found in the sky. The computer sends the code
to an electric motor that turns the telescope toward the star. Even then, the
scientist does not look into the telescope, but at a video screen. A video screen
can show a picture of what the star looks like up close.
Not all telescopes work in the same way. Older telescopes read, or respond
to the light from stars, to fi nd where the stars are located. A new kind of
telescope responds to the energy, or power, a star gives off. This telescope
is called a radio telescope. The telescope reads the energy of a star in radio
waves to fi nd out where it’s located.
Because of these new machines, we now have a much better idea of the
stars and other objects in outer space. Imagine how the next kind of telescope
will help us see even more of outer space!
COMPREHENSION How do telescopes help scientists learn about outer
space? Name one way that astronomers use computers.
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