开车去太阳

2020年10月3日

Driving to the Sun
Image Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA

Explanation: How long would it take to drive to the Sun? Brittany age 7, and D.J. age 12, ponder this question over dinner one evening. James also age 7, suggests taking a really fast racing car while Christopher age 4, eagerly agrees. Jerry, a really old guy who is used to estimating driving time on family trips based on distance divided by speed, offers to do the numbers. “Let’s see … the Sun is 93 million miles away. If we drove 93 miles per hour the trip would only take us 1 million hours.” How long is 1 million hours? One year is 365 days times 24 hours per day, or 8,760 hours. One hundred years would be 876,000 hours, but that’s still a little short of the 1 million hour drive time. So the Sun is really quite far away. Christopher is not impressed, but as he grows older he will be. You’ve got to be impressed by something that’s 93 million miles away and still hurts your eyes when you look at it!

Tomorrow’s picture: nearby stellar nursery

开车去太阳
影像提供: Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA

说明: 开车去太阳要多久啊？ 7岁的布列塔尼和12岁的D.J.，在某个晚餐时思索这个问题，而同是7岁的詹姆斯建议开台超跑去，4岁的克里斯多佛则完全同意。老先生杰瑞经常在家庭出游时，提供旅程所需时间的估算。他如此说：「太阳嘛……距离们有1亿5千万公里远。如果开车的时速是150公里，那这个旅程只要1百万小时。」 1百万小时是多久？每年有365天，每天有24小时，所以1年有8,760小时，100年有876,000小时，还是比1百万小时要短。所以太阳真的颇远的。克里斯多佛觉得这个旅程不怎么样，不过，等他再长大一些，他的看法会改观。不过，对远在1亿5千万公里之外，但仍可轻易灼伤你眼睛的天体，你理应满怀敬畏。

明日的图片: nearby stellar nursery