Copyright:David Cruz
中文翻譯:
在浩瀚的宇宙中，木星是太陽系中最大的氣體行星，它就像夜空中最亮的燈塔，照耀著我們的眼睛。這幅美麗的夜空圖畫是在阿連特茹（Alentejo），葡萄牙的天空下拍攝的。這幅圖是由在12月13日和14日拍攝的500張照片中選出來的40張，其中有很多流星。當你看到這些流星時，你可能會覺得它們是從木星那裡飛出來的，其實它們是從名叫“雙子星座”（Gemini）中的亮星卡斯托（Castor）那裡出來的。這幅圖中，卡斯托就在木星的上方和左側。然而，這些流星的父母是一顆名為3200 Phaethon的近地小行星。3200 Phaethon的軌道受到了木星和其他內部行星的引力影響。
原文:
Jupiter, the Solar System’s ruling gas giant, is the brightest celestial beacon at the center of this composite night skyscape. The scene was constructed by selecting the 40 exposures containing meteors from about 500 exposures made on the nights of December 13 and 14, near peak activity for this year’s annual Geminid meteor shower. With each selected exposure registered in the night sky above Alentejo, Portugal, planet Earth, it does look like the meteors are streaming away from Jupiter. But the apparent radiant of the Geminid meteors is actually closer to bright star Castor, in the shower’s eponymous constellation Gemini. In this frame that’s just a little above and left of the Solar System’s most massive planet. Still, the parent body of Geminid meteors is known to be rocky, near-Earth asteroid 3200 Phaethon. And the orbit of Phaethon itself is influenced by the gravitational attraction exerted by massive Jupiter, in concert with planets of the inner Solar System.
來源:NASA每日圖片
