特别广播英语第 128 课：Worlds within Worlds 世界中的世界-1

First of all let us consider the earth (that is to say, the world) as a planet revolving round the sun. 首先让我们把地球看作是围绕太阳运行的一颗行星。

The earth is one of mine planets which move in orbit round the sun. 地球是沿轨道围绕太阳运行的九大行星之一。

These nine planets, together with the sun, make up what is called our solar system. 这九大行星和太阳一起组成了所谓的我们的太阳系。

How this wonderful system started and what kept it working with such wonderful accuracy is largely a mystery but astronomers tell us that it is only one of millions of similar systems is space, and one of the smallest. 这个奇妙的星系是怎样开始的，什么使它保持精确地运行，这是一个很大的迷。但是天文学家告诉我们太阳系只是太空里几百万个相似的星系中的一个而且是最小的一个。

The stars which we see glittering in the sky on a dark and cloudless night are almost certainly the suns of other solar systems more or less like our own, 在漆黑的夜空，我们看到的闪烁的星星几乎肯定是其它太阳系中有些类似我们星系中的恒星。

but they are so far away in space that it is unlikely that we shall ever get to know very much about them. 但是它们在太空中距离我们如此遥远以至于我们不可能对其了解太多。

About our own solar system, however, we are learning more every day. 然而对于我们的太阳系，每天我们都会了解到更多东西。

Before the American and Russian astronauts made their thrilling journeys into outer space it was difficult for us to realise what our earth looked like from hundreds of thousands of miles away, 在美国和俄罗斯宇航员进行激动人心的太空旅行之前，我们很难认识到从数十万英里以外的地方看地球会是什么样子。