经典美文：Why does the Moon seem to follow us
以下是小编整理的情感类英语美文欣赏：Why does the Moon seem to follow us， 希望使你的心灵有所触动。
Why does the Moon seem to follow us when we drive?
Why does the Moon seem to follow us when wedrive? asks a 4th-grade class in Lancaster, OH.
Feel like you're being followed? While it seems likethe Moon is always just over your shoulder on amoonlit night, the Sun is also shadowing you as youdrive on a sunny afternoon. And then there arethose distant mountains to worry about…
According to astronomers, the reason why the Moon and the Sun seem to be following usis because they are so far away. The Moon, for example, is about 240,000 miles away; the Sunabout 93 million miles. And no matter how fast we drive, we just can't pass them.
When you drive by a stand of trees or a series of telephone poles near the road, you passthem very quickly. So you see roadside objects first ahead of you, then next to you, and finallybehind you, receding into the rear-view mirror.
But when you drive (or stroll) by the Moon, it's a different story. Because the Moon is sofar away, the angle you view it from will change very little as you move along. So mile after mile,the Moon will remain in roughly the same spot of sky. And just as you can't “pass” the Moon,neither can you shake the presence of the Sun, planets, or stars. Even very distant mountainranges appear nearly stationary as we drive by. And far-away farms and city skylines seem tomove by very slowly.
Since we can't pass the Moon, we can't pass its reflection, either. When you walk along thebeach at night, the river of moonlight reflected off the water moves right along with you. Try towade out into the moonlight, and you'll find it remains tantalizingly out of reach, just as ashimmering patch-of-water mirage retreats down the road as you drive toward it.
When you stand on the beach, moonlight bounces off the water and into your eyes at anearly fixed angle. As long as the Moon is in the same spot of sky and the water level doesn'trise or fall much, the angle of reflection will remain roughly the same. So if you can see theentire ribbon of moonlight, your eyes are at just the right height to intercept the rays of lightbouncing off the water from the horizon to the beach.
Once you wade out into the water, however, you've also moved your eyes. The moonlightbouncing from the water at your feet doesn't strike your eyes; instead, it shoots right pastyou at a lower height. So the water at your feet looks dark.
Friends on the beach behind you, however, will see you standing right in the moonlightroad, and could even snap a picture of it. So to bathe in moonlight, simply sit down in thewater, where your eyes can catch the silvery light at the right angle.
Meanwhile, just as every car on the road thinks the Moon is following them, so every walker on the beach sees their own ribbon of moonlight, stretching towards the horizon.
By Kathy Wollard
