China sends unmanned vessel to moon’s far side

Today's expression: At any given time
Explore more: Lesson #119
January 10, 2019:

The far side of the moon, which has until now only been observed via photographs, is now being explored by a rover from China, scientists announced. The first-ever trip to the so-called "dark side of the moon" will help shed light on the moon's geology and will take more detailed photographs than are possible from the moon's more familiar side. Plus, learn the English phrase "at any given time."

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China goes to the dark side—of the moon, that is

Welcome back to Plain English, I’m Jeff, JR is the producer, and this is Plain English, the best podcast for learning English. That’s because we speak English at a slow speed here, not too slow, but we give you just enough space in between the words to understand what they all are. And if you need some extra help, there’s always the transcripts. Today’s transcript is available online at PlainEnglish.com/119, since today is episode number one hundred nineteen.

By the way, I got a good audience reaction to the New Year’s resolution episode we did a few days ago. So I wanted to share a little bit more with you about that. You remember I said there were some good habit-tracking apps out there? I used one a few years ago, but gave up on it after a while. So I went back to see what’s new and I tried a few out. The best one I have found so far is totally free, and it’s called Strides. S-T-R-I-D-E-S, strides. This one has worked out the best for me. So if you’re looking for an app to help you track your progress on habits or resolutions, check out Strides.

Link: The New Yorker: Mistakes You’re Going to Keep Making Forever

Speaking of New Year’s I also saw a funny cartoon on the web site of the New Yorker magazine last week and I think you’ll like it. I’ll put the link to it at PlainEnglish.com/119, so you can see the full cartoon. But basically the idea is, it might be the New Year, but you’ll still keep doing some things you shouldn’t do regardless. It’s called “Mistakes You’re Going to Keep Making Forever.” So the cartoon has a bunch of different panels to it, a bunch of different parts. And each part is one bad thing you’ve been doing that—let’s be honest—you probably won’t stop doing just because it’s 2019. So here are a few of them.

First up, ordering too much food and justifying it by saying you’ll eat half of it the next day—but then eating it all anyway. And it’s got a picture of a guy who has clearly overeaten lying flat on his back.

Here’s another one I like. Picking a song at karaoke with a long musical interlude. The musical interlude is the part of a song with no lyrics, no singing—not a good karaoke choice if your song has a long musical interlude. It’s got a drawing of a girl standing awkwardly on the stage, holding a microphone waiting for the words to start—and everyone in the audience is looking at their phones.

How about, introducing yourself to people you’ve met before? That’s a bad one—I’m guilty of that sometimes. One more: there’s a picture of a guy lying on a couch with an annoyed look. The caption says, “Watching a show that’s been bad for three seasons, hoping this is the episode where it all turns around.” We’ve all done that, right? We just keep hanging on and hoping it gets better.

By the way—JR, if you’re listening, you can attest to this—the last cartoon in the series is 100 percent me. I won’t tell you what it is. You have to go see that one to get why it’s funny. So head to PlainEnglish.com/119 and see the link for these cartoons—they’re funny. Mistakes you’re going to keep making forever.

Link: The New Yorker: Mistakes You’re Going to Keep Making Forever


Chinese spacecraft to shed light on moon’s dark side

So this is another one of those episodes in which your host bravely steps far, far outside his comfort zone and discusses something about…drumroll please…science. Not my strongest subject in school, let’s leave it at that. And let me come right out and admit something. You’ve heard the phrase, “the dark side of the moon,” right? Until today—stop laughing—until today, I thought the moon spun around all the time just like the earth, so that the “dark side” is just the side that’s not facing us at any given moment. So I thought we’d see all sides of the moon, just at different times.

Yeah, no. That’s not how it works at all. Apparently, the moon and the earth rotate in such a way that we see a little more than 50 percent of the moon’s surface, but the side that’s facing away from us is always the same side. So there is in fact a “dark side”—although it’s not dark all the time, it’s just not facing us.

Anyway, for as much as we’ve explored the moon, the far side has been a mystery. Scientists have landed vessels on the moon by staying in constant communication with the earth. Landing a device, even an unmanned spacecraft, on the far side has heretofore been impossible. But the Chinese have done it—they successfully landed the Chang’e 4 spacecraft on the far side of the moon. And they did it autonomously, meaning it landed all by itself, without being controlled by anyone or anything on earth. After the Chang’e 4 landed, a ramp opened up, and a small rover called the Yutu 2, or Jade Rabbit 2, drove off a ramp and began exploring the moon.

The purpose of the trip is to explore the surface, take samples, learn about the minerals that might be up there, and to measure the radiation from the sun that hits the moon’s far side. In other words, to learn more about that part of the moon that is invisible to us. One surprise from the American and Soviet missions in the 1960s and 1970s is that water is abundant in the moon’s surface; one objective of this mission will be to discover how and why water exists there.

Scientists think the actual geology on that part of the moon is different, so there is a lot to learn. China plans to send another vessel to the moon, the Chang’e 5, to take the samples back to earth.

The spacecraft landed in the moon’s South Pole-Aitken basin, which is a big crater. Scientists think the moon formed after a planet-sized object crashed into earth millions of years ago, ejecting material that was once part of the earth into the solar system. The current theory suggests that the moon is made of material that was once part of earth, and the Chinese tests are likely to shed more light on that theory.

The mission will also be useful for exploring deeper into space. The earth gives off radio waves and all kinds of other things that interfere with the equipment needed to peer deep off into space, so the telescopic observations from the moon’s far side are expected to also be valuable to the scientific community.

Let it never be said that scientists don’t have a lighter side. On the first trip to the moon, Neil Armstrong brought a golf club and hit a golf ball into space. On this trip, the rover has brought some seeds, and it expects the Arabidopsis plant to grow into the first flower in space. The landing “lifted the mysterious veil” from the moon’s far side, and “opened a new chapter in human lunar explanation,” according to the Chinese government.


Special thanks to a listener today, Rodolfo in Ecuador. Rodolfo sent me a nice note describing the New Year’s traditions in Ecuador. Here’s what they do there. They create this guy called the Año Viejo, the old year. It’s a figure made of cardboard and wood, and decorated with paper and things. They can be simple or elaborate. Often they represent celebrities, politicians, singers, things like that. But the figure represents the year that’s ending. And then at the stroke of midnight, they pour lighter fluid on the poor Año Viejo and set him on fire! They burn the old year to say goodbye to it and welcome the new year with fireworks. I was actually in JR’s home town, a small small town in the Mexican state of Veracruz one year for the New Year and they did the same thing. They called him, “El viejo,” the old guy.

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Expression: At any given time