雙語探秘：太陽究竟是什么顏色的(組圖) -新概念英語

Today I found out the Sun is white, not yellow。

今天我剛發(fā)現(xiàn)，太陽表面的顏色是白色的，不是黃色。

The reason the Sun looks yellow to us on Earth is that our atmosphere scatters light from the Sun; so the apparent color of the sun changes。

之所以我們在地球上用肉眼看到的太陽是黃色的，是因為地球的大氣層散射了太陽光線；所以太陽表面的顏色對我們而言就有所變化了。

This same scattering effect is why the sky looks blue in the day time instead of black, like at night。

這與白天天空是藍色，而夜晚天空就是黑色的原理是一樣的，都因為產(chǎn)生了光線的散射。

Specifically, what is going on here is the Earth’s atmosphere scatters light in the blue and violet wavelength range, so the remaining wavelengths of light appear yellow。

更準確一些的說，地球大氣層把藍色和紫色的波長范圍進行散射，所以光線中剩下的波長就顯現(xiàn)出了黃色。

As the sun is setting, more of the shorter wavelength blue is being scattered because of the decreased angle of the sun relative to you; thus the light has to pass through more atmosphere to get to you。

當太陽落山的時候，由于太陽高度角降低，更多的藍色光波被散射；因此光線必須要穿越更厚的大氣層才能到地球。

This increased diffusion results in less of the blue wavelength being visible to you and thus what remains appears yellow。

越來越多的散射，使得你肉眼所能看到的藍色光波越來越少，于是剩下的光線就是黃色的了

Similarly, if it is dusty or there are a lot of other larger particles in the air, this will filter out larger wavelengths, resulting in a red sky and red sun。

同樣，如果空氣中塵埃比較多，或是空氣中有很多其它大顆粒，那么那些較長的光波就會被過濾掉，于是天空就會是紅色，太陽也會是紅色。

Bonus Factoids:

補充一些有趣的小知識：

1.Light travels from the Sun to the Earth in about 8 minutes and 19 seconds。

太陽光線“長途跋涉”到地球上，大概需要8分19秒

2.While it only takes 8 minutes and 19 seconds for the light from the surface of the sun to reach us, it actually takes about 10,000-170,000 years for a photon to travel from the core of the sun to the surface。

雖然太陽光從太陽表面到達地球僅僅需要8分19秒，但是一個光量子要想從太陽中心內(nèi)部到達太陽表面，卻要用一萬至十七萬年。

3.The Sun has an effective surface temperature of 5780 K, which is equivalent to just under 10,000 F and 5500 C。

太陽表面的溫度高達5780開，相當于一萬華氏度和5500攝氏度一下的溫度。

4.The core of the Sun has a density almost 150 times the density of water on Earth。

太陽中心的密度相當于地球水體密度的一百五十倍。

5.About 3/4 of the Sun’s mass consists of hydrogen, with most of the rest being helium (23.8%) and about 2% remaining consisting of other elements such as iron, oxygen, carbon, neon, and a variety of others。

太陽質(zhì)量的約75%都是氫氣，其余的有約23.8%都是氦氣，還有剩下的2%是由鐵、氧氣、碳、氖氣還有其他多種成分組成的。