Finding your way in space

6 Minute English

语言学习

2022-05-19

6 分钟
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  • Sam: I'm Sam.

  • Rob: And I'm Rob.

  • Sam: How good are you at finding your way from A to B, Rob?

  • Can you read a map?

  • Rob: Come on, Sam, this is the 21st century!

  • Everyone uses GPS and mobile phone apps to find their way around these days.

  • Sam: True, but before mobile phones

  • where invented arriving at your destination wasn't so easy.

  • At sea, sailors used the stars and Sun to navigate –

  • to work out which direction they wanted to travel.

  • And navigating on land was almost impossible without a compass –

  • an instrument for finding directions that uses a magnetic needle

  • which moves to always point north.

  • Rob: But, as we'll be hearing in this programme,

  • navigation at sea is easy compared to finding your way in outer space.

  • After all, what's up and what's down for astronauts

  • who are floating in zero gravity?

  • In space is there a true north, like here on Earth?

  • And how is everything complicated

  • by the fact that all the stars and planets are moving?