Which of the following statements about lights is best supported by the passage below (paragraphs 25-26)?
Curiosity has lights; it uses them to illuminate samples and perform spectroscopy. However, these lights are turned on only when it’s taking measurements. With no human instructions, it will have no reason to turn them on.
Unless they have humans on board, spacecraft don’t need a lot of lights. The Galileo probe, which explored Jupiter in the 1990s, had several LEDs in the mechanism of its flight data recorder. Since they emitted infrared rather than visible light, calling them “lights” is a stretch—and in any case, Galileo was deliberately crashed into Jupiter in 2003.
Answer choices for the above question
A. Lights fulfill more of a human need than a mechanical one.
B. Galileo wouldn’t have crashed into Jupiter if it had been equipped with visible lights.
C. There is no reason for a spacecraft to be outfitted with lights.
D. All of the above
The passage does not support answer choice B, as it does not mention that the lack of visible lights was the reason for the deliberate crash of the Galileo probe into Jupiter.
Answer choice C is the best supported by the passage, as it states that there is no reason for a spacecraft to be outfitted with lights. The passage explicitly states that Curiosity's lights are turned on only when taking measurements and that without human instructions, there is no reason for them to be turned on. The passage also mentions that the Galileo probe had LEDs that emitted infrared light rather than visible light, suggesting that visible lights are not necessary for spacecraft.
Therefore, the correct answer is C.