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0Why the Sun Is Incredible
The Sun is just one of hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy. In a way, there's nothing very special about it. It's a fairly ordinary star – not particularly large or bright by stellar standards. But it's very special to us.
太阳只是银河系数千亿颗恒星中的一颗。从某种意义上说，它并没有什么特别之处。它是一颗相当普通的恒星--按照恒星的标准，它并不是特别大，也不是特别亮。但它对我们来说却非常特别。
The Sun makes life on Earth possible. Cultures across the world, and throughout the ages, worshipped the Sun. In some ways, modern life has cut us off from the Sun. In the developed world, we spend 90% of our time indoors – and yet the Sun is still a powerful force underpinning our lives. The Sun affects our perception of beauty. When people talk of the "golden hour", that time just before the Sun sets, it's a real thing.
太阳使地球上的生命成为可能。古往今来，世界各地的文化都敬拜太阳。在某些方面，现代生活使我们与太阳隔绝。在发达国家，我们 90% 的时间都在室内度过，但太阳仍然是支撑我们生活的强大力量。太阳影响着我们对美的感知。当人们谈论“黄金时段”时，即太阳落山之前的时间，这是真实的。
The Sun isn't actually yellow or orange or even red; it's all the colours mixed together. When the Sun rises or sets in the sky, the shortwave colours – green, blue and violet – are scattered, leaving only the yellow and the red part of the spectrum, giving that amazing glow. When the sun is high in the sky, its blue waves bounce around – which is why the sky looks blue. And when you see a rainbow, that's the light from the Sun separated into all its magnificent colours.
太阳实际上不是黄色或橙色，甚至不是红色;而是所有颜色的混合。当太阳在天空中升起或落下时，短波颜色（绿色、蓝色和紫色）会散射，只留下光谱的黄色和红色部分，从而发出惊人的光芒。当太阳高悬于天空时，它的蓝波四处反射--这就是为什么天空看起来是蓝色的。而当你看到彩虹时，那是太阳的光被分离成了各种绚丽的色彩。
Although we talk of the Sun rising in the east and setting in the west, that's not quite true. It just seems that way to us. The Sun stays in the same place. It's the Earth that rotates on its axis. This movement of the Sun is deeply embedded in our biology. When sunlight enters the eye, it sends signals to a master clock in our brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus. This internal clock regulates everything, from when we sleep to how we digest a meal. Messing with this finely-tuned machine, when we work night shifts or fly across the world, can make us feel pretty rough. Even the bluish light from a mobile phone late at night is enough to disrupt and confuse our internal body clock.
虽然我们说太阳从东方升起，在西方落下，但这并不完全正确。在我们看来是这样的。太阳停留在原地。是地球绕着它的轴旋转。太阳的这种运动深深植根于我们的生物学中。当阳光进入眼睛时，它会向我们大脑中被称为视交叉上核的主时钟发送信号。这个生物钟调节着一切，从我们何时睡觉到我们如何消化一顿饭。当我们值夜班或在世界各地飞行时，摆弄这台微调过的机器会让我们感到很难受。即使是深夜手机发出的蓝光也足以扰乱和混淆我们体内的生物钟。
Being out of step with the Sun affects our mood and our ability to think clearly. And there's evidence that this kind of disruption can lead to higher rates of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and even cancer. We're living out of step with the Sun and some scientists say this could be causing a public health crisis. When the Sun is shining, studies have shown that we tip more generously and are more likely to splash out on luxury goods. And crime may go down, too. One study in the US found that when the clocks go forward for Daylight Savings Time, the number of robberies, rapes and murders went down around 50%.
与太阳轨迹脱节会影响我们的情绪和清晰思考的能力。有证据表明，这种干扰会导致肥胖、心脏病、糖尿病甚至癌症的发病率升高。我们的生活与太阳脱节，一些科学家说，这可能会导致公共健康危机。研究表明，当阳光明媚时，我们会更慷慨地给小费，更有可能在奢侈品上花钱。犯罪率也可能下降。美国的一项研究发现，当夏令时提前时，抢劫、强奸和谋杀的数量下降了约50%。
The Sun is a hell of a force to be reckoned with. Every hour, enough sunlight falls on the Earth to power the world for a year – a year. Deep in its core, at around 15 million degrees Celsius, the Sun is constantly fusing hydrogen together to make helium. These nuclear reactions release vast amounts of energy in the form of sunlight. If only we could work out how to harness this. But we are getting there. It's estimated that by 2022, 30% of our energy could come from renewables, with solar growing faster than anything else.
太阳是一股不可忽视的力量。每小时，落在地球上的阳光足够全世界使用一年--一年。太阳的核心深处，在大约 1500 万摄氏度的高温下，不断地将氢聚变成氦。这些核反应以太阳光的形式释放出大量能量。要是我们能研究出如何利用这些能量就好了。但我们正在努力。据估计，到 2022 年，我们 30% 的能源将来自可再生能源，其中太阳能的增长速度将超过其他任何能源。
The Sun is vast, dynamic and sometimes violent. Viewed up close, the Sun's surface looks like a raging sea of fire, with huge eruptions rising hundreds of thousands of kilometres into space. There are even earthquakes on the Sun – called sunquakes. And what happens on the Sun can impact us. The Sun sporadically blasts huge clouds of charged particles towards the Earth, potentially wreaking havoc on the technology that we all rely on. But 97% of people have never heard of solar storms.
In 1859, a gigantic solar storm hit the Earth, creating auroras that covered the entire planet, knocking out the telegraph network and sending sparks flying from electrical equipment. The solar storm of 1859 is still the largest on record. But if a similar storm were to hit the Earth today, the consequences for our way of life could be devastating, knocking out electricity grids, satellite navigation and communications for days, weeks, or even months. No wonder people used to worship the sun.
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