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原文:
The first to orbit Mercury, the MESSENGER spacecraft came to rest on this region of Mercury’s surface yesterday. Constructed from MESSENGER image and laser altimeter data, the scene looks north over the northeastern rim of the broad, lava filled Shakespeare basin. The large, 48 kilometer (30 mile) wide crater Janacek is near the upper left edge. Terrain height is color coded with red regions about 3 kilometers above blue ones. MESSENGER’S final orbit was predicted to end near the center, with the spacecraft impacting the surface at nearly 4 kilometers per second (over 8,700 miles per hour) and creating a new crater about 16 meters (52 feet) in diameter. The impact on the far side of Mercury was not observed by telescopes, but confirmed when no signal was detected from the spacecraft given time to emerge from behind the planet. Launched in 2004, the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemisty and Ranging spacecraft completed over 4,000 orbits after reaching the Solar System’s innermost planet in 2011.
中文翻譯:
🌌✨ 昨日，第一個環繞水星的 MESSENGER 太空船安息於水星的表面。這幅場景是根據 MESSENGER 的圖像和激光高程計數據構建的，畫面向北望去，展示了廣闊的充滿熔岩的莎士比亞盆地的東北邊緣。上方左側的 48 公里（30 英里）寬的詹納切克（Janacek）大隕石坑清晰可見。地形高度以顏色編碼，紅色地區比藍色地區高出約 3 公里。MESSENGER 的最終軌道預計將在中央附近結束，太空船以近 4 公里每秒（超過 8,700 英里每小時）的速度撞擊水星表面，創造出一個直徑約 16 米（52 英尺）的新隕石坑。儘管無法通過望遠鏡觀察到位於水星另一側的撞擊，但當太空船的信號在隱藏於行星背後的時間內未被檢測到後，這一撞擊得到確認。MESSENGER 於 2004 年發射，於 2011 年到達太陽系內部行星，完成了超過 4,000 次軌道。
#MESSENGER #水星 #Shakespeare盆地 #詹納切克隕石坑 #太空探索 #NASA #SolarSystem #科技歷史 #發現太空 #宇宙之美 #科學探索
來源:NASA每日圖片
