保护地球，探索宇宙，发现文明
2022年3月31日 Exploring the Antennae Image Credit & Copyright: Dietmar Hager, Eric Benson Explanation: Some 60 million light-years away in the southerly constellation Corvus, two large galaxies are colliding. Stars in the two galaxies, cataloged as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, very rarely collide in the course of the ponderous cataclysm that lasts for hundreds o...
2022年3月30日 Animation: Odd Radio Circles Credits: Illustration: Sam Moorfield; Data: CSIRO, HST (HUDF), ESA, NASA; Image: J. English (U. Manitoba), EMU, MeerKAT, DES (CTIO); Text: Jayanne English Explanation: What do you call a cosmic puzzle that no one expected to see? In this case, Odd Radio Circles, aka ORCs. ORC-1 typifies the enigmatic five objects, only...
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei arrived at the International Space Station on April 9, 2021, and will return home March 30, 2022, after spending 355 days in low-Earth orbit. This duration breaks the previous record, held by retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, by 15 days. Vande Hei will return in a Soyuz spacecraft as scheduled alongside cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov...
2022年3月29日 Venus and Mars: Passing in the Night Image Credit & Copyright: Carlos Kiko Fairbairn Explanation: When two planets pass on the night sky, they can usually be seen near each other for a week or more. In the case of this planetary conjunction, Venus and Mars passed within 4 degrees of each other earlier this month. The featured image was taken ...
Major smashups between rocky bodies shaped our solar system. Observations of a similar crash give clues about how frequent these events are around other stars. Most of the rocky planets and satellites in our solar system, including Earth and the Moon, were formed or shaped by massive collisions early in the solar system’s history. By smashing together, rocky...
2022年3月28日 Gems of a Maldivean Night Image Credit & Copyright: Petr Horálek (ESO Photo Ambassador, Inst. of Physics in Opava) Explanation: The southernmost part of the Milky Way contains not only the stars of the Southern Cross, but the closest star system to our Sun — Alpha Centauri. The Southern Cross itself is topped by the bright, yellowish st...
2022年3月27日 Titan Seas Reflect Sunlight Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, U. Arizona, U. Idaho Explanation: Why would the surface of Titan light up with a blinding flash? The reason: a sunglint from liquid seas. Saturn’s moon Titan has numerous smooth lakes of methane that, when the angle is right, reflect sunlight as if they were mirrors. Pictured here ...
2022年3月26日 Pluto at Night Image Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins Univ./APL, Southwest Research Institute Explanation: The night side of Pluto spans this shadowy scene. In the stunning spacebased perspective the Sun is 4.9 billion kilometers (almost 4.5 light-hours) behind the dim and distant world. It was captured by far flung New Horizons in July of 2015 when th...
Wally Funk delivers remarks after accepting the 2022 Michael Collins Trophy for Lifetime Achievement, Thursday, March 24, 2022, at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Michael Collins Trophy recognizes extraordinary accomplishments in aeronautics and spac...
2022年3月25日 The Medusa Nebula Image Credit & Copyright: Damien Cannane Explanation: Braided and serpentine filaments of glowing gas suggest this nebula’s popular name, The Medusa Nebula. Also known as Abell 21, this Medusa is an old planetary nebula some 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Gemini. Like its mythological namesake, the nebula ...