William Herschel was born on November 15th, 1738 in Hanover in a family of musicians. In 1757,he fled to England and began earning a living as an organist and later composer and conductor. In 1772, he convinced his sister Caroline to join him as a singer. In their spare time the brother-sister team became occupied in astronomy. William died at his home in Slough, near Windsor on August 25th,1822,and Caroline on September 1st,1848.
Herschel’s first major discoveries were to show that Mars and Jupiter exhibit axial rotation(绕轴自转). Herschel struck fame in 1781,when on March 13th he discovered the planet Uranus(天王星) while engaged in work aimed at determining stellar parallax(恒星视差).This being the first new planet discovered since ancient times, Herschel, until then a mere amateur astronomer relatively unknown even in England, became world-famous. Adopting a historically proven strategy, Herschel named the new planet Georgium Sidum,in honor of the then ruling English king GeorgeⅢ. The trick worked once again, as King GeorgeⅢ gave William and Caroline the titles of“The King’s Astronomer”and“Assistant to the King’s Astronomer”, an honor which came with a life’s pension for both. In 1782 they moved to Bath, and shortly thereafter to Slough, and from this point on William and Caroline could devote themselves entirely to astronomy. The Herschels went on to discover two moons of Uranus in 1787.
While Caroline became increasingly occupied with the search for comets at which she was quite successful, William became for a time interested in the Sun. Inspired by Wilson’s 1774 work, he put forth the theory of sunspots(太阳黑子),an opinion that continued to exist well into the nineteenth century. In 1800,he became interested in the solar spectrum(太阳光谱),and uncovered the first evidence for solar energy output outside of the visible spectrum, in what is now known as the infrared(红外线).In 1801, he published two papers that effectively started the field of solar influences on Earth’s weather.
小题1:Herschel made himself known to the world mainly by .
A．discovering the planet Uranus
B．determining stellar parallax
C．discovering two moons of Uranus
D．uncovering the evidence for the infrared小题2:It can be inferred from the passage that George Ⅲ .
A．liked science and technology
B．liked Herschel’s naming of the new planet
C．was interested in astronomy
D．gave Herschel a lot of useful suggestions小题3:What do we know about Caroline from the passage?
A．She was successful in music.
B．She was given the title of“The King’s Astronomer”.
C．She died later than her brother.
D．She published two papers.小题4:This passage mainly tells readers .
A．some information about Herschel and his sister
B．how Herschel and his sister discovered the planet Uranus
C．Herschel and Caroline got along well with each other
D．Herschel and Caroline’s major scientific publications
