雅思阅读-073-helium3-gold-rush-on-the-moon改编自-scientific-american-带音频

ielts 👁 4 · 💬 0 · 📅 2026-09-14
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雅思阅读 073 — A Helium-3 'Gold Rush' on the Moon?

改编自 Scientific American（2026-05，Robin George Andrews）。

🎧 课文朗读音频（约 2 分钟）

Reading Passage

As an international 21st-century lunar race intensifies, one pragmatic question remains: How can you make money on the moon? The answer, according to several scientists and entrepreneurs, is a resource that is vanishingly rare on Earth yet may exist in lunar abundance: helium-3.

Helium-3 is spectacularly useful, and demand for it is soaring. A superlative coolant, helium-3 enables quantum computers to reach their operating temperatures, fractions of a degree above absolute zero. The precious substance is also vital for advanced medical imaging, as well as sniffing out smuggled nuclear material, and holds promise as a clean fuel for future fusion reactors.

On Earth, most of the available supply of helium-3 comes as a by-product of nuclear weaponry via the radioactive decay of tritium. This process makes just a few kilograms of helium-3 per year worldwide, and a single kilogram currently costs about 20 million dollars. But scientists estimate that somewhere on the order of a billion kilograms of helium-3 are laquered onto the lunar surface. So moon-based mining of helium-3 could, it seems, someday become a multitrillion-dollar industry.

"Helium-3 is where the money is," says Clive Neal, a lunar geoscientist at the University of Notre Dame.

Helium-3 is an isotope of helium that possesses one fewer neutron than its more common counterpart, helium-4. Researchers realised the moon was a potential helium-3 treasure trove in the 1970s, after finding it in drill cores gathered by astronauts during NASA's Apollo missions.

"The moon has an extra source of helium, which is the sun," says Sara Russell, a planetary scientist at London's Natural History Museum. The solar wind — the stream of charged particles emanating from the sun's atmosphere — carries various chemical species, including helium-3, out into space. "Earth is shielded from this solar wind because of our atmosphere and magnetic field. The airless moon doesn't have this shield, so helium-3 gets spray-painted across the whole of the lunar surface."

The moon is relatively rich with ilmenite — a mineral made of iron, titanium and oxygen with a physical structure that acts like a trap for the gas. "Ilmenite is like a sponge. It holds onto the solar-wind-implanted species better than any other mineral on the moon," Neal says.

Prospecting for lunar helium-3 starts by making mineralogical maps. First, find ilmenite-rich regions, typically in lunar mare — the dark patches that signify ancient lava seas. Then make sure they have good exposure to the solar wind, generally more equatorial regions and often on the lunar far side. Finally, check whether the surfaces are relatively free of recent meteorite impacts.

As straightforward as finding helium-3 might be, extracting it could prove much harder. "It's like trying to mine spray paint from a wall," Russell says. No one has yet demonstrated helium-3 extraction on the moon. That is the top priority of several space resource companies, including Seattle-based Interlune, founded in 2020.

Interlune plans to launch its robotic Prospect Moon mission as early as 2028. "We will have a robotic arm and a mass spectrometer onboard, where we'll demonstrate different methods of extracting solar wind gases, including helium-3," says Rob Meyerson, Interlune's CEO.

Whether tapping the moon's stores will lead to a lunar "gold rush" remains uncertain. "Perhaps the helium-3 industry will be a bust," Neal admits. "But, just maybe, we're going to hit the mother lode. If it's proven, it could change everything."

Questions

Questions 1–5: TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN

  1. Helium-3 is used as a coolant for quantum computers.
  2. On Earth, helium-3 is mainly produced as a by-product of coal mining.
  3. One kilogram of helium-3 currently costs about $20 million.
  4. The moon has no atmosphere or magnetic field to shield it from the solar wind.
  5. Helium-3 has already been commercially mined on the moon.

Questions 6–10: Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

  1. Helium-3 differs from helium-4 by having

    • A. one more proton
    • B. one fewer neutron
    • C. one fewer electron
    • D. twice as many neutrons

  2. The moon's helium-3 comes primarily from

    • A. lunar volcanoes
    • B. the solar wind
    • C. meteorite impacts
    • D. Apollo missions

  3. Ilmenite is useful for helium-3 prospecting because it

    • A. glows in the dark
    • B. traps and holds helium-3 like a sponge
    • C. repels solar wind
    • D. contains high concentrations of water

  4. The best regions for helium-3 prospecting are typically

    • A. near the lunar poles
    • B. in ilmenite-rich lunar mare near the equator
    • C. in deep craters
    • D. on mountain peaks

  5. Interlune's Prospect Moon mission is planned to launch as early as

    • A. 2026
    • B. 2028
    • C. 2035
    • D. 2050

Questions 11–13: Complete the sentences. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS.

  1. Helium-3 enables quantum computers to reach temperatures near __________ zero.
  2. Lunar dark patches formed from ancient lava are called __________.
  3. Interlune is based in __________.

Answers

  1. TRUE
  2. FALSE (主要来自核武器氚的衰变)
  3. TRUE
  4. TRUE
  5. FALSE (尚未证明可开采)
  6. B
  7. B
  8. B
  9. B
  10. B
  11. absolute
  12. mare
  13. Seattle

Glossary

  • isotope /ˈaɪsətəʊp/ n. 同位素
  • helium /ˈhiːliəm/ n. 氦
  • quantum computer 量子计算机
  • tritium /ˈtrɪtiəm/ n. 氚
  • solar wind 太阳风
  • ilmenite /ˈɪlmənaɪt/ n. 钛铁矿
  • mare /ˈmɑːreɪ/ n. 月海
  • regolith /ˈreɡəlɪθ/ n. 月壤
  • prospecting /prəˈspektɪŋ/ n. 勘探

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