Copyright:
原文:
Why are there unusual pits on Pluto? The indentations were discovered during the New Horizons spacecraft’s flyby of the dwarf planet in July. The largest pits span a kilometer across and dip tens of meters into a lake of frozen nitrogen, a lake that sprawls across Sputnik Planum, part of the famous light-colored heart-shaped region named Tombaugh Regio. Although most pits in the Solar System are created by impact craters, these depressions look different — many are similarly sized, densely packed, and aligned. Rather, it is thought that something has caused these specific areas of ice to sublimate and evaporate away. In fact, the lack of overlying impact craters indicates these pits formed relatively recently. Even though the robotic New Horizons is now off to a new destination, it continues to beam back to Earth new images and data from its dramatic encounter with Pluto.
中文翻譯:
在冥王星(Pluto)上，發現了一些不尋常的坑洞。這些凹陷是在“新視野(New Horizons)”太空船於七月飛掠冥王星時所發現的。最大的坑洞可達一公里寬，並深入數十米進入一片冰凍氮的湖泊內，這個湖泊遍布在斯普特尼克平原(Sputnik Planum)，即著名的心形區域—唐保留區(Tombaugh Regio)的一部分。
儘管太陽系中的大多數坑洞都是由隕石撞擊形成的，但這些凹陷看起來卻不一樣——許多坑洞大小相似，密集排列並且對齊。成因推測是某種過程導致這些特定區域的冰升華並蒸發掉。事實上，缺乏覆蓋的隕石撞擊坑表明這些坑洞相對近期才形成的。
雖然機器人“新視野”目前已經前往新的目的地，但它仍持續向地球傳送來自冥王星的最新影像和數據。
#冥王星 #新視野 #斯普特尼克平原 #唐保留區 #太空探索 #宇宙奧秘 #冰凍世界 #行星科學 #天文學 #升華現象
來源:NASA每日圖片
