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Happy New Solar Ellipse!
新年快乐！
Happy New Year! And don't feel bad about taking today off.
新年快乐！别因为今天马上就要离去而感到难过。
After all, you've traveled far.
毕竟你已经旅行了非常远的距离。
And I'm not talking about the trip home from the party.
我不是在谈论从聚会返回家的这段路途。
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.
根据NASA的计算，从去年开始，我们的地球已经绕太阳飞速旋转了58.4亿公里。
At an average speed of about 67,000 miles per hour.
时速大约为每小时67000公里。
Again, not talking about the drive home from the party.
再次重申，不是开车从聚会回家的这段路程。
Of course, the trip was not a perfect circle.
当然，地球的旅程并不是个完美的弧形。
As Kepler showed, the earth's orbit is an ellipse, with the sun at one of the two focal points.
就像开普勒曾指出的，地球的轨道是个椭圆，相对以太阳为中心绕起来的话有两个焦点。
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.
他还算出这个行星在距离太阳最近的近日点比在距离太阳最远的远日点时运动的速度快。
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.
这就解释了为什么夏天速度移动的飞快，当然是除去地球轴性导致的倾斜从而产生的季节因素，地球与太阳之间的距离也不是原因。
And the earth rotated 365 and a quarter times during its sweep around the sun.
地球每年绕着太阳旋转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小时，也就是31,557,600 秒，525,960分钟，就像这次一样。
