Copyright:
Ruslan Merzlyakov
(astrorms)
中文翻譯:
有一天，小朋友們在天空中看到了一道奇怪的光，那是一種叫做「黃道光」的神奇光芒！這種光是由在太陽附近的微小塵埃組成的，當太陽的光線照射到這些塵埃上時，就會發出耀眼的光彩。這些塵埃來自我們宇宙中的小彗星，它們慢慢朝著太陽移動。最近，科學家們發現了來自67P彗星的塵埃，這讓他們對這些神秘的黃道光有了新的理解。這幅漂亮的畫面是在西班牙的特內里費國家公園拍攝的，當天的黃道光呈現出一個明亮的三角形，漂亮的星星「Regulus」高掛在空中，還能看到接近地平線的「蜜蜂星團」（M44），它們都沐浴在柔和的黃道光中！
原文:
What’s that strange light down the road? Dust orbiting the Sun. At certain times of the year, a band of sun-reflecting dust from the inner Solar System appears prominently just after sunset — or just before sunrise — and is called zodiacal light. Although the origin of this dust is still being researched, a leading hypothesis holds that zodiacal dust originates mostly from faint Jupiter-family comets and slowly spirals into the Sun. Recent analysis of dust emitted by Comet 67P, visited by ESA’s robotic Rosetta spacecraft, bolsters this hypothesis. Pictured when climbing a road up to Teide National Park in the Canary Islands of Spain, a bright triangle of zodiacal light appeared in the distance soon after sunset. Captured on June 21, 2019, the scene includes bright Regulus, the alpha star of the constellation Leo, standing above center toward the left. The Beehive Star Cluster (M44) can be spotted below center, closer to the horizon and also immersed in the zodiacal glow.
來源:NASA每日圖片
