雙語科技百科(天文) 第4期:彗星
Comet
Chinese records of comets dated back to a lon,g tim,e ng the Spring and Autumn Period, some 2,200 years ago, Chinese documents already had records of comets, among which the most verifiable one is the record of a comet, which appeared in 613 BC, iri Sprin,g an,d Autumn, iS recog-nized as the earliest mention of Halley's Comet in the world, 670 years earlier than the Western Europe, where the earliest record of Halley's Comet was in AD 66.
中國古代關於彗星的紀事很早。早在2200多年前春秋時期的古文獻中已有關於彗星的記錄。最可靠的是《春秋》對出現於公元前613年的彗星記錄。這是世界上關於哈雷彗星的最早記錄。西歐對哈雷彗星的最早記載是公元66年，這比中國最早的記載晚了670餘年。Since Halley's Comet visits the earth once every 76 years, it came back to the earth 29 times during a period of 2,149 years from 240 BC ( the 7th year of the reign of the First Emper-or of Qin)to 1910 ( the 2nd year of the reign of Emperor Xuantong of Qing) of these vis-its was clearly recorded by Chinese scholars.J. R. Hind, a British astronomer, once usedthese continuous data to calculate the orbit of Halley's Comet, and discovered that the angle of the orbit showed a narrowing the Han Dynasty, it was 170 degrees, but it nar-rowed down t0 161 degrees in the mid-9th century.
哈雷彗星大約每隔76年出現一次，從公元前240年到公元1910年的2149年期間，史書對哈雷彗星出現的記載多達29次，且記述詳盡。英國天文學家J．R．海德曾經使用這些數據計算哈雷彗星的運行軌道，他發現，彗星運行軌道角度呈變小趨勢：在漢代，角度爲1700，到19世紀中葉，則減至1610。
From 1600 BC to AD 1600, China recorded comets 581 times, leaving behind valuable materials. In 635 BC, Chinese astronomers pointed out that the comet al-ways traveled with its back to the sun. Without these repeated observations, the detailed descriptions of the comet tails could not have been made, nor could the relationship between the sun and comets have been correctly deduced.
從公元前1600年到公元1600年，中國古代對彗星的記載多達581次，留下了極爲珍貴的資料。公元前635年，中國古代天文學家指出，彗星總是背對太陽運行。沒有上述有關彗星的反覆觀察，關於彗尾的描述則不可能詳盡，也不可能對太陽和彗星之間的關係做出正確的分析。
