Do stars only appear at night? The answer is no .Venus （金星） is the one and only star that can be seen in the daytime. It shone at its brightest in the night sky on February 17^th, 2017.

    Venus is the second planet from the sun in our solar system. It is the second brightest natural object, behind Earth's moon, in the night sky. Why is it so bright?

    First of all, Venus is the closest planet to Earth. It is also covered by highly reflective （反射的）clouds, which can reflect about 70 percent of the sunlight striking（照射） it, almost twice as much as Earth does.

    Some called 2017 the year of Venus, because the planet is at its brightest when it goes further away from the sun, and nearer to Earth. The brightest moment happened once in February, and happened again, during daylight, on April 30^th.

    If Venus is so bright and close to us, isn't it a better choice for human exploration than Mars? It is closer to Earth than Mars and it's closer to Earth in size. The closer distance to the sun means solar power would be easier to generate （产生） as well.

    However, with a temperature of about 465℃on the surface, Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system!

    But scientists never give up. Recently, a team of NASA and Russian scientists created new computer equipment that can stand the temperature of 480℃. It can work under Venus-like conditions for almost 22 days.

    The next step, according to the scientists, is to send a probe（探测器）to Venus by 2025.

    Trees are useful to man in three important ways: they give him wood and other useful things, they give him cool places, and they help to stop drought and flood.

    Unluckily, in many parts of the world, man has not found that the third of these points is the most important. Man wants to make money from trees, so he has cut them down in large numbers, only to find that without them he has lost the best friends he had. And also, he is usually too careless to plant and look after new trees. So the forests slowly disappear.

    This does not only mean that man will have fewer trees. The results are even worse: for where there are trees, their roots break up soil make the rain in——and also bind the soil, thus stopping it from being washed away easily; but where there are no trees, the rain falls on hard ground and flows away, causing floods and carrying away the rich top-oil. When all the top soil is gone, nothing is left but useless desert.

    A zero-waste life is a lifestyle that hardly creates any rubbish. So, a zero-waste store is about providing a kind of everyday and pleasant-looking zero-waste products to help people start on a zero-waste life journey.

    "Zero waste" or "danshari" was first suggested by a French woman called Bea Johnson. Her idea is: live a life and try not to create any rubbish; use different kinds of ways to save the environment such as stopping the use of one-off objects; giving unwanted things to others or giving them away to organizations like the Red Cross.

    Yu Yuan, 27, is deeply interested in this idea. She and her boyfriend have lived in Beijing for many years. And earlier she used to buy things without thinking about them carefully until she saw a video about "zero waste", in which a family of four placed the rubbish they produced every year in a jar (罐). After watching the video, Yu wanted to experience this zero-waste lifestyle with her boyfriend.

    A zero-waste life follows the 6R rule-Refuse Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle and Rot. Over August-October when Yu followed the rule of zero waste 6R, she and her boyfriend Joe Harvey both produced only two cans of rubbish.

    Now, the couple have opened a small shop in Beijing, where they use wood products to take the place of plastic ones and cloth bags printed with environmentally friendly logos. Most products sold in the store can be reused. The store also has second-hand books and CDs/DVDs with, ideas to make the best of the used things.

    "Those who once experienced the non-waste lifestyle have slowly changed their ideas," says Ya, "The zero-waste lifestyle is not for ascetics (苦行僧). It is just around us at our finger-tips." Yu expects some of her friends to join her on the road to zero waste.

    There are some easy things you can do to protect the environment and the earth. Choose ideas from the list or come up with a few of your own.

    •Plant flowers, grass or trees.

    •Whenever you visit a park or beach, take away what you bring there—keep rubbish in a bag until you can put it in a dustbin.

    •Turn off the lights and TV sets when you leave the room. This can save a lot of electricity.

    •Turn off the tap when you brush your teeth. You can save some water by not letting it run. Also, use a glass cup instead of a paper cup because this saves paper.

    •Keep the doors and windows closed in winter to keep warm air in.

    •Give your old books and magazines to a library instead of throwing them away.

    •Give your old clothes to poor children you know instead of throwing them away.

    •Use both sides of paper.

    •Stop pouring dirty water into the rivers or lakes nearby.

    •Encourage all your friends to do the same things you do to help protect the earth. You don't have to wait until Earth Day to do these things. Make every day Earth Day. If everyone makes a contribution to protecting the environment, the world will become much more beautiful.

    Now satellites(卫星)are helping to forecast(预报)the weather. They are in space and they can reach any part of the world.The satellites take pictures of the atmosphere(大气), because this is where the weather forms(形成). They send these pictures to the weather station. So meteorologists(气象专家)can see the weather of any part of the world. From the pictures, the scientists can often say how the weather will change.

    Today, nearly five hundred weather stations in sixty countries receive satellite pictures. When they receive new pictures, the meteor- ologists compare(比较)them with earlier ones. Perhaps they may find that the clouds have changed during the last few hours .This may mean the weather on the ground may soon change, too. In their next weather forecast, the meteorologists can say this.

    So the weather satellites are a great help to the meteorologists. Before satellites were invented, the scientists could forecast the weather for about 24 or 48 hours. Now they can make good forecasts for 3 or 5 days. Soon, perhaps , they may be able to forecast the weather for a week or more ahead(提前)

In February 2021, a young man in Italy posted a video on Tik Tok about his new neighbor—and their unbelievable piano talent! They 1 their friendship by two pianos separated by one wall.

One day in January, the young man 2an idea when he heard the music from his neighbor. He wrote a note to his neighbor and 3him to play a song together： the classic "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion.

The next day, hearing the music from the neighbor, the young man was both 4and moved. Their communication soon 5piano duets （二重奏）through the wall, where each of them would create great music together.

Later, the young man 6that his neighbor's name was Emil and he was 78 years old. His wife had passed away in December from COVIEM9. Emil felt so sad and the only 7 thing left to him was playing the piano. He played it for his wife at 2 pm every weekend.

8 , Emil passed away in his sleep a few weeks later. When the young man learned the news, he felt so sad. To express his feeling, the young man wrote a letter to Emil, "Dear Emil, I knew very little about you,9 you changed my life. You gave me back my passion （激情），and we shared that with the world. You'll be in my 10.keep playing, thinking of how powerful music can be. You said I was your light, but you've been mine, too. Bye, Emil. "