中英對照讀新聞》Rare ’Christmas Star’ To Light Up Night Sky For First Time In Hundreds Of Years 罕見的「耶誕之星」數百年來首度將點亮夜空

◎黃靖媗

The planets of Jupiter and Saturn will appear on the winter solstice to be so close from Earth that they may look like one shining star, even though they’ll actually be 450 million miles apart.

木星與土星將在冬至的時候相當靠近，從地球看起來像是1顆閃耀的星星，雖然他們實際上仍相距4.5億英里。

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The so-called "Great Conjunction" last happened in 1623 but could not be seen from Earth. Before that, the phenomenon previously occurred on March 4, 1226.

被稱為「大合」的現象上次出現於1623年，但當時可能無法從地球看見。在這之前，前一次這種現象出現於1226年3月4日。

2020’s celestial event has been christened by some as the "Christmas Star," due to its proximity to Christmas Day.

2020的天空盛典被稱為「耶誕之星」，得名於其靠近耶誕節。

"Alignments between these two planets are rather rare, occurring once every 20 years or so, but this conjunction is exceptionally rare because of how close the planets will appear to one another," said Patrick Hartigan, a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University.

「這兩個行星的對齊排列很稀有，20年才會出現1次，但這次的交合格外罕見，因為兩個行星間的距離相當近」，萊斯大學物理學與天文學教授派翠克．哈蒂根表示。

新聞辭典

occur：動詞，發生、出現。例句：There is a serious traffic accident occurred in front of the city hall.（市政府前發生一起嚴重的車禍。）

celestial：形容詞，天的、天空的。例句：We can observe the celestial bodies in the Museum of Natural Science.（我們可以在科學博物館內觀看天體。）

proximity：名詞，接近、鄰近。例句：Proximity to the school is the biggest advantage of the house.（離學校近是這間房子最大的優點。）