Copyright:
Imran Sultan
中文翻譯:
在美麗的土星星球上，土星的環告訴你今天是什麼季節。在地球上，今天標誌著春分，這是當地球的赤道直接朝向太陽的時候。土星那壯觀的環繞著這個星球的赤道，因此當土星的自轉軸指向太陽時，這些環就會顯得格外明亮。相反地，當土星的自轉軸偏向一側時，就會發生春分，這時候只從太陽和地球的方向看，環就變得難以看到。在這幅精美的拼圖中，展示了2020年至2025年間的土星影像，有助於我們看到這顆巨大的行星在今年的春分，從北半球的夏季轉到南半球的夏季。昨天，土星恰好與地球靠得非常近，因此這個月，這顆有環的巨星格外明亮，整晚都可以看到哦！
原文:
On Saturn, the rings tell you the season. On Earth, today marks an equinox, the time when the Earth’s equator tilts directly toward the Sun. Since Saturn’s grand rings orbit along the planet’s equator, these rings appear most prominent — from the direction of the Sun — when the spin axis of Saturn points toward the Sun. Conversely, when Saturn’s spin axis points to the side, an equinox occurs, and the edge-on rings are hard to see from not only the Sun — but Earth. In the featured montage, images of Saturn between the years of 2020 and 2025 have been superposed to show the giant planet passing, with this year’s equinox, from summer in the north to summer in the south. Yesterday, Saturn was coincidently about as close as it gets to planet Earth, and so this month the ringed giant’s orb is relatively bright and visible throughout the night.
來源:NASA每日圖片
