2015-02-13 BBC:星光七纪元-9

But when a star is born and starts its life story, scientists have discovered that something else very important can begin. The first person to get an inkling of the second story of creation was Nicolas C, the father of modern astronomy, an accidental social revolutionary, in 1543 he published a book that overturned more than 1,000 years of astronomical¹ thought, the belief that the Sun revolved² around the Earth.

Well, this is exciting, this is one of the most important books in the history of science, you can see from the title page that it's C's six books on the revolution of heavenly spheres, as well as being astronomically³ explosive, it was also explosive in terms of changing humankind's understanding of its place in the universe, and we can see that i think quite clearly, if we look at the famous diagram here and you can see that here at the centre is not the Earth as people had thought for thousands of years, but sol Latin for Sun, and here is the Earth going around the central Sun in this revolutionary new conception of the universe.

Earth had been relegated⁴ from the centre of the universe to just the third rock circling the Sun, the traditional story of how the cosmos⁵ was constructed had been shaken to its foundations, and in the 16th century this had deeply subversive⁶ implications.

1 astronomical   

adj.天文学的，（数字）极大的

参考例句：

• He was an expert on ancient Chinese astronomical literature.他是研究中国古代天文学文献的专家。
• Houses in the village are selling for astronomical prices.乡村的房价正在飙升。

2 revolved   

v.（使）旋转( revolve的过去式和过去分词 )；细想

参考例句：

• The fan revolved slowly. 电扇缓慢地转动着。
• The wheel revolved on its centre. 轮子绕中心转动。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 astronomically   

天文学上

参考例句：

• The bill was astronomically high. 账单上的金额高得没谱儿。
• They have only been read as the multitude read the stars, at most astrologically, not astronomically. 它们之被群众阅读，有如群众之阅览繁星，至多是从星象学而不是从天文学的角度阅览的。

4 relegated   

v.使降级( relegate的过去式和过去分词 )；使降职；转移；把…归类

参考例句：

• She was then relegated to the role of assistant. 随后她被降级做助手了。
• I think that should be relegated to the garbage can of history. 我认为应该把它扔进历史的垃圾箱。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

5 cosmos   

n.宇宙；秩序，和谐

参考例句：

• Our world is but a small part of the cosmos.我们的世界仅仅是宇宙的一小部分而已。
• Is there any other intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos?在宇宙的其他星球上还存在别的有智慧的生物吗？

6 subversive   

adj.颠覆性的，破坏性的；n.破坏份子，危险份子

参考例句：

• She was seen as a potentially subversive within the party.她被看成党内潜在的颠覆分子。
• The police is investigating subversive group in the student organization.警方正调查学生组织中的搞颠覆阴谋的集团。