保护地球，探索宇宙，发现文明
2023年9月22日 Cosmos in Reflection Image Credit & Copyright: Jeff Dai (TWAN) Explanation: During the day, over 12,000 large mirrors reflect sunlight at the 100-megawatt, molten-salt, solar thermal power plant at the western edge of the Gobi desert near Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China. Individual mirror panels turn to track the sun like sunflowers. They con...
2023年9月21日 Tagging Bennu Image Credit: OSIRIS-REx, University of Arizona, NASA, Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio Explanation: The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft’s arm reached out and touched asteroid 101955 Bennu on October 20, 2020, after a careful approach to the small, near-Earth asteroid’s boulder-strewn surface. Dubbed a Touch-And-Go (TAG) sam...
2023年9月20日 Methane Discovered on Distant Exoplanet Illustration Credit: Ahmad Jabakenji (ASU Lebanon, North Star Space Art); Data: NASA, ESA, CSA, JWST Explanation: Where else might life exist? One of humanity’s great outstanding questions, locating planets where extrasolar life might survive took a step forward in 2019 with the discovery of a signific...
2023年9月19日 HH 211: Jets from a Forming Star Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Webb; Processing: Tom Ray (DIAS Dublin) Explanation: Do stars always create jets as they form? No one is sure. As a gas cloud gravitationally contracts, it forms a disk that can spin too fast to continue contracting into a protostar. Theorists hypothesize that this spin can be reduced by exp...
2023年9月18日 The Red Sprite and the Tree Credit & Copyright: Maxime Villaeys Explanation: The sprite and tree could hardly be more different. To start, the red sprite is an unusual form of lightning, while the tree is a common plant. The sprite is far away — high in Earth’s atmosphere, while the tree is nearby — only about a football fie...
2023年9月17日 Moon Mountains Magnified during Ring of Fire Eclipse Credit & Copyright: Wang Letian (Eyes at Night) Explanation: What are those dark streaks in this composite image of a solar eclipse? They are reversed shadows of mountains at the edge of the Moon. The center image, captured from Xiamen, China, has the Moon’s center directly in front o...
2023年9月16日 Fireball over Iceland Image Credit & Copyright: Jennifer Franklin Explanation: On September 12, from a location just south of the Arctic Circle, stones of Iceland’s modern Arctic Henge point skyward in this startling scene. Entertaining an intrepid group of aurora hunters during a geomagnetic storm, alluring northern lights dance across...
2023年9月15日 Venus, Moon, and the Smoking Mountain Image Credit & Copyright: Luis Miguel Meade Rodríguez Explanation: Venus has returned as a brilliant morning star. From a window seat on a flight to Mexico City, the bright celestial beacon was captured just before sunrise in this astronomical snapshot, taken on September 12. Venus, at the upper right, sh...
2023年9月14日 NGC 7331 and Beyond Image Credit & Copyright: Ian Gorenstein Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 7331 is often touted as an analog to our own Milky Way. About 50 million light-years distant in the northern constellation Pegasus, NGC 7331 was recognized early on as a spiral nebula and is actually one of the brighter galaxies not incl...
2023年9月13日 NGC 4632: Galaxy with a Hidden Polar Ring Credit: Jayanne English (U. Manitoba), Nathan Deg (Queen’s University) & WALLABY Survey, CSIRO/ASKAP, NAOJ/Subaru Telescope; Text: Jayanne English (U. Manitoba) Explanation: Galaxy NGC 4632 hides a secret from optical telescopes. It is surrounded by a ring of cool hydrogen gas orbiting at 90 deg...