Question

pretest: realizing dreams
cassini
adapted from nasa
the cassini mission to saturn is one of the most ambitious efforts in planetary space exploration ever mounted. it was a joint endeavor of nasa, the european space agency (esa) and the italian space agency, agenzia spaziale italiana (asi). cassini is a sophisticated robotic spacecraft orbiting the ringed planet and studying the saturnian system in detail. cassini also carried a probe called huygens. huygens parachuted to the surface of saturn’s largest moon, titan, in january 2005 and returned spectacular results.
cassini completed its initial four - year mission to explore the saturn system in june 2008. also, it completed its first extension, called the cassini equinox mission, in september 2010. then, the healthy spacecraft made exciting new discoveries in a second extension called the cassini solstice mission.
in late 2018, the cassini spacecraft began a daring set of orbits called the grand finale. in some ways, it is a whole new mission. the spacecraft will repeatedly climb high above saturn’s poles, flying just outside its narrow f ring 20 times. after a last targeted titan flyby, the spacecraft will then dive into saturn’s uppermost atmosphere and its innermost ring 22 times. as cassini plunges past saturn, the spacecraft will collect rich and valuable information far beyond the mission’s original plan. this will include measuring saturn’s gravitational and magnetic fields, determining ring mass, sampling the atmosphere and ionosphere, and making the last views of enceladus, the sixth largest moon of saturn.
1
choose the correct answer.
which sentence best expresses the central idea of the passage?
a. nasa, the european space agency (esa), and the italian space agency, agenzia spaziale italiana (asi) collaborated in order to launch the cassini mission that would study the planet saturn.
b. the goal of the ambitious cassini mission, funded by different space organizations, is to explore the ringed planet saturn and study it in detail.
c. the cassini mission, funded by different space organizations, was launched in order to study the different moons of the planet saturn
d. nasa launched the cassini spacecraft with the intention of studying the planet saturn and its moons.

Explanation:

The passage introduces the Cassini mission as a joint, ambitious effort by multiple space agencies focused on exploring and studying Saturn and its system (including moons and rings) over extended missions, with additional late-mission data collection. Option A only focuses on collaboration and the basic mission start, missing the core goal of detailed study. Option C incorrectly states the mission was only for Saturn's moons, which is not true. Option D excludes the collaborative nature of the mission. Option B accurately captures the mission's ambition, collaborative funding, and core goal of exploring and studying Saturn in detail.

Answer:

B. The goal of the ambitious Cassini mission, funded by different space organizations, is to explore the ringed planet Saturn and study it in detail.