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Happy New Solar Ellipse!
新年快樂！
Happy New Year! And don't feel bad about taking today off.
新年快樂！別因為今天馬上就要離去而感到難過。
After all, you've traveled far.
畢竟你已經旅行了非常遠的距離。
And I'm not talking about the trip home from the party.
我不是在談論從聚會返回家的這段路途。
According to NASA, just by being on the planet earth in the last year, you've zipped about 584 million miles around the sun to get back where you were.
根據NASA的計算，從去年開始，我們的地球已經繞太陽飛速旋轉了58.4億公里。
At an average speed of about 67,000 miles per hour.
時速大約為每小時67000公里。
Again, not talking about the drive home from the party.
再次重申，不是開車從聚會回家的這段路程。
Of course, the trip was not a perfect circle.
當然，地球的旅程并不是個完美的弧形。
As Kepler showed, the earth's orbit is an ellipse, with the sun at one of the two focal points.
就像開普勒曾指出的，地球的軌道是個橢圓，相對以太陽為中心繞起來的話有兩個焦點。
He also figured out the planet goes faster when it's at perihelion, nearer the sun, than when it's at aphelion, its furthest distance.
他還算出這個行星在距離太陽最近的近日點比在距離太陽最遠的遠日點時運動的速度快。
Which would explain why summer seems to zip by, except the seasons are a function of the tilt of the earth's axis, not its different distances from the sun.
這就解釋了為什么夏天速度移動的飛快，當然是除去地球軸性導致的傾斜從而產生的季節因素，地球與太陽之間的距離也不是原因。
And the earth rotated 365 and a quarter times during its sweep around the sun.
地球每年繞著太陽旋轉365天零四分之一天。
The trip took 8,766 hours. Or 31,557,600 seconds. Or 525,960 minutes just like this one.
大概是8766小時，也就是31,557,600 秒，525,960分鐘，就像這次一樣。
