Happy New Year! And don't feel bad about ____1____. After all, you've traveled far. And I'm not talking about the trip home from the party last night. According to NASA, just by being on the planet Earth in the last year, you’ve ____2____ about 584 million miles around the sun to get back where you were. At an average speed of about 67,000 miles per hour. Again, not talking about the drive home last night.
Of course, the trip was not a perfect circle. As Kepler showed, ____3____, with the sun at one of the two focal points. He also figured out the planet goes faster when it’s at perihelion, nearer the sun, than when it's at aphelion, its farthest distance.
Which would explain why summer seems to ____4____, except the seasons are a function of the tilt of the Earth’s axis, not its different distances from the sun. And the Earth rotated 365 and a quarter times during its ____5____ the sun. The trip took 8,766 hours. Or 31,557,600 seconds. Or 525,960 minutes just like this one.
【視聽(tīng)版科學(xué)小組榮譽(yù)出品】
taking today off zipped the Earth’s orbit is an ellipse zip by sweep around
另一個(gè)繞日橢圓軌道 新年快樂(lè)！別再為又一年第一天的到來(lái)而傷感了，畢竟，你已行走了如此之久。我可不是在說(shuō)昨晚從新年派對(duì)上回家的路程。據(jù)美國(guó)航空航天局（NASA）稱(chēng)，僅僅在去年，你為回到自己的所在地，在地球上已繞著太陽(yáng)呼嘯飛過(guò)了5億8千4百萬(wàn)英里，平均速度約為每小時(shí)6.7萬(wàn)英里。同剛才一樣，我不是在說(shuō)昨晚開(kāi)車(chē)回家的事。 當(dāng)然，我們繞著太陽(yáng)的軌道并不是一個(gè)正圓。開(kāi)普勒發(fā)現(xiàn)地球的軌道是橢圓形，太陽(yáng)正好處于橢圓的兩個(gè)焦點(diǎn)之一。他還計(jì)算出地球在近日點(diǎn)（即距離太陽(yáng)最近的點(diǎn)）比在遠(yuǎn)日點(diǎn)（即距離太遠(yuǎn)最遠(yuǎn)的點(diǎn)）運(yùn)行得更快。 這或許可以解釋為什么我們感覺(jué)夏天會(huì)過(guò)得那么快，當(dāng)然，季節(jié)是由地球自轉(zhuǎn)軸傾斜造成的之外，而地球與太陽(yáng)之間的距離變化不是四季更替的原因。地球繞太陽(yáng)一周自轉(zhuǎn)365又1/4次。共花8766個(gè)小時(shí)，即3千1百55萬(wàn)7千6百秒，或52萬(wàn)5千9百60分鐘——我們的節(jié)目恰恰好是一分鐘。