本帖最后由 森林里 于 2009-2-24 21:26 编辑
地球+太阳=太空钻戒 本月9日的半影月食很多地区的朋友都没有观赏到。美洲的很多地区，或是西欧都没能看到，甚至当那些住在亚洲的人们抬头想要仰望满月时，却遗憾地看到雾霭缭绕、犹抱琵琶的月面。
2009年2月9日，日本发射的月球轨道探测器“月亮女神”号正在观测时，地球（较大的光环）和太阳在月球的视野前刚好运行到同一位置。
© 日本宇宙航空研究开发机构（JAXA）/日本放送协会（NHK）
但是从月球的位置观赏到的却是完全不同的一番景象！请看这幅由月亮女神号拍摄的照片，月亮女神号2007年9月发射升空，至今仍在环月轨道运行。月食当日，月亮女神号搭载的高分辨率视频摄相机（由日本媒体巨头NHK提供）拍摄到了地球由黯淡的月球视野中升起，而太阳却被地球“藏”在背后的画面。
探测器、月球、地球和太阳排成一条直线这一偶然机会，使我想起当年《2001太空漫游》开场时的经典场景（难不成是亚瑟·克拉克和斯坦利·库布里克在怅惘日本的月亮女神？）
图片上的地球视面周围环绕着纤细的光环（除去底部还未从月球地平线升起的区域）。这些是从地球大气层中折射出的光线。令人好奇的是，光环并不是我认为的红色，因为大气层会散射所有的蓝色光——而这也正是赋予月全食“红润”颜色的“滤色镜”。
无论怎样，这幅非同一般的图片昨天才在日本宇宙航空研究开发机构的月亮女神官网上公之于众。而我之前不得不费了点事，在一份日文的PDF演示稿中找到这个图片。
图片中找不到月亮女神号的拍摄地点和时间等信息。但只要使用Starry Night搞点小伎俩就可以看出时间是接近于食甚（2月9日14：38分世界协调时），探测器位置大约在月球西经110°，北纬42°上空60英里（100公里）的某个点。
演示稿中同时提到月亮女神号的小型中继卫星之一（在月球背面重力绘图中发挥了关键作用），在月面西经159.03°，北纬28.21°撞击了月球表面。而JAXA的官员也希望月亮女神号能在6月的某个时间直接撞入月球表面。
原文如下：
Earth-and-Sun Diamond RingThe penumbral lunar eclipse on February 9th wasn't widely viewed. It couldn't be seen for much of the Americas or from western Europe, and even those in Asia who looked up at the full Moon saw only a dusky shading draped over part of the lunar disk.
On February 9, 2009, as the Japanese lunar orbiter Kaguya looked on, Earth (large ring) and Sun rose together over the lunar landscape.
© JAXA / NHK
But the view from the Moon was something else altogether! Take a look at this view captured by Kaguya, which has been orbiting there since September 2007. On eclipse day, a high-def television camera aboard Kaguya (supplied by Japanese media giant NHK) captured Earth rising over a darkened lunar landscape with the Sun peeking out from behind our home planet.
It's a fortuitous alignment of spacecraft, Moon, Earth, and Sun that reminds me of the classic opening scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey! (Were Arthur Clarke and Stanley Kubrick channeling the mythic Japanese Moon princess Kaguya? Hmmm.)
There's a thin ring of light encircling Earth's disk (except at the bottom, which hasn't yet risen above the lunar horizon). This is sunlight refracted through our atmosphere. Curiously, the ring isn't red, as I thought it would be, due to the atmosphere's scattering away all the blue light — this filtering is what gives total lunar eclipses their ruddy cast.
In any case, this remarkable image came to light, so to speak, in a release made public yesterday on a Kaguya website maintained by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). I had to root around a little to find the PDF presentation (in Japanese) featuring this view.
I didn't see any indication of the time and Kaguya's location when the camera was rolling. But a little diddling with Starry Night suggests it must have been near mid-eclipse (14:38 Universal Time on February 9th) with the craft positioned 60 miles (100 km) above a spot that's roughly 110° west, 42° north.
The presentation also mentions the location where one of Kaguya's small relay satellites, crucial in the creation of far-side gravity maps, crashed into the Moon out of view from Earth at 159.03° west, 28.21° north. JAXA officials expect that Kaguya itself will slam into the Moon sometime in June. |
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