As the Sun Turns
太陽也在自轉?
Everyone knows that the earth turns.
大家都知道地球會自轉。
As a matter of fact, the sun turns too. Altough a lot of people don't realize it.
實際上,太陽也會自轉。盡管很多人并不知道。
I'm not talking about being in orbit, now the earth definitely orbits the sun and not the other way around. I'm talking about the entire sun spinning on its axis, like a globe when you give it a push with your hand.
我不是說在軌道上運轉。地球當然是圍繞太陽轉,但不會反過來(太陽繞地球轉)。我說的是太陽以自身為軸轉動,就像地球儀你用手推它一下就會自己轉動。
The sun spins around its own axis with a period of about twenty-seven days. That means it takes twenty seven days for the same side to come around again. Back in the seventeenth century, Galileo was the first person to point out that sunspots move from day to day, giving him the idea that the whole sun might be rotating.
太陽自轉的周期大約為27天。這意味著要27天的時間同側才會轉回來。早在17世紀,伽利略是第一個指出太陽黑子是一天天地移動,由此給他啟發太陽可能也在轉動。
Even today, a lot of people aren't aware of the suns rotation, simply because you can't look directly at it. But Galileo was absolutely right, as our modern observations confirm.
即使現在,很多人仍然感覺不到太陽的轉動,那只是因為我們不能直視太陽。但經過我們現代的觀察證實伽利略是對的。