1    I had been waiting for this moment since I was six years old. I was lying on my back, strapped(被安全带绑住) inside my seat in the space shuttle(航天飞机) Columbia(哥伦比亚号). It was minutes before launch and my first trip into space.

2    Six seconds before liftoff(发射), the three main engines roared to life. My seat bucked. It rattled(嘎嘎作响). It rolled. If I hadn’t been strapped in, the rumbling(隆隆声) would have tossed me to the floor.

3    Columbia blasted(疾飞) skyward(向上). At that moment, I felt like there was a hand on the middle of my back. The hand was pushing me straight up into the sky. Columbia sped upward. I was yelling inside my helmet, “Yahoo! Let’s go!” No one could hear me over the engines.

4    Eight and half minutes later, everything went silent. The main engines shut down. Another wave of excitement(激动) hit me as I realized I’d made it. I was in space. Now I was eager(渴望) to get my first view of Earth from space.

Sunrise(日出), Sunset(日落)

5    I unstrapped(解开安全带) myself and floated(漂浮) to a window. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. As I pressed(压) my nose to the glass, I gasped. The view took my breath away.

6    The velvety(天鹅绒般的) blackness of the sky jumped out at me. It was darker than any color I had ever seen. The inky(墨黑的) darkness seemed like it was glowing(发光) black. A bright blue layer of Earth’s atmosphere met with the blackness of space.

7    Before long, I saw the first of many sunsets from the shuttle. Sunset and sunrise is much different in space.

8    On Earth, we can see one sunrise and one sunset each day. This is caused by Earth’s rotation, or spinning on its axis. It takes 24 hours for Earth to complete one rotation.

9    The shuttle orbits, or goes around, Earth every 90 minutes. That means I could see 16 sunrises and sunsets each day. During my trip, I could have seen more than a hundred.

Our Star, the Sun

10    The space shuttle whips around Earth at 28,000 kilometers per hour. At that speed, sunsets seem to happen much faster than they do on Earth. They happen so quickly, you could easily miss one. In only 13 seconds, I saw Earth’s atmosphere change from daytime blue to orange to deep red to nighttime black.

11    From Earth or the shuttle, the sun is the brightest object in the sky. It is also the largest object in our solar system. One million planets the size of Earth could fit inside it.

12    Yet the sun is just an average-size star. Stars are giant balls of hot gases. These gases are a star’s fuel. Stars change their fuel into energy. We see and feel some of this energy as heat and light. Most stars have enough fuel to make heat and light for billions of years.

13    Light flows from the sun and travels through space. It takes a little more than eight minutes for the sun’s light to reach Earth. That means the sunlight you are seeing right now left the sun about eight minutes ago.

Our Solar System

14    Energy from the sun not only warms Earth. It warms all the planets. A planet is a large space object that orbits a star. In all, eight planets orbit our sun. Four of these planets are small, rocky(多岩石的) worlds. They’re called the inner(内部的) planets. The other four are gas giants. They’re called     the outer(外部的) planets.

15    Jupiter(木星) is the largest of these worlds. It has a ring and more moons than any other planet. It also is almost completely made of gases. These gases move constantly. Colorful(多姿多彩的) clouds churn(翻腾) around storms. Bolts(闪电束) of lightning(闪电) streak(闪现). The Great Red Spot, the largest storm on any planet in the solar system, whips around. Auroras(极光) even shimmer(闪烁) above the planet’s poles.

Star Light, Star Bright

16    From the space shuttle, I had a grand(宏大的) view of the sun, Earth, and other planets. I also could see many more stars than I could ever see from the ground.

17    On Earth, the atmosphere blocks some of the light from each star. The atmosphere not only dims(使变暗) starlight, it changes it. Moving gases cause stars to twinkle(闪烁). In space, stars don’t twinkle. They look like steady points of light.

18    From the shuttle, I could see stars of different colors. They were white, blue, red, and even yellow, like our sun. Color tells a lot about a star. For example, it can tell you how hot a star is. Cooler stars are red. Warm stars are yellow. The hottest stars are blue.

1. At that speed, sunsets seem to happen much faster than they do on Earth. They happen so quickly, you could easily miss one.

照这样的速度，日落的发生似乎比在地球上要快得多。日落发生得如此之快，你很容易就会错过一次。

第一句中的 do 替代前文的动词 happen；第二句的逗号相当于 that，即：

They happen so quickly that you could easily miss one.

2. the inner planets:带内行星

指轨道在小行星带以内的行星，即水星、金星、地球和火星。

3. the outer planets:带外行星

指轨道在小行星带以外的行星，即木星、土星、天王星和海王星。

4. The Great Red Spot, the largest storm on any planet in the solar system, whips around.

大红斑——太阳系所有行星上最大的风暴气旋——在飞速旋动。

the largest storm on any planet in the solar system 是 the Great Red Spot 的同位语。大红斑是木星表面的特征性标志，是木星上最大的风暴气旋。