Copyright:The Mare Orientale
中文翻譯:
在遙遠的月球上，有一個很特別的地方，叫做Mare Orientale，也就是東海。這個地方是月球上最年輕的大型隕石坑，非常壯觀，但是從地球上看卻很難看到。當我們的望遠鏡在7月7日的時候，因為月球的位置恰好好，所以能夠清楚地看到東海。這個圖片中，東海位於右上方，看起來有點扭曲，因為它延伸在月球的西邊。這個地方大約在30億年前就因為一顆小行星的撞擊而形成，寬達近1000公里。隕石坑裡面有圓圓的波紋，像是月球表面的痕跡。雖然在地球上看很難，但從月球的軌道上拍攝的照片，能更清楚地看到這些圖案。那麼，為什麼東海會在月球的西邊呢？原來在1961年之前，對月球的東西方命名有過改變，所以大家現在看到的東海，其實是在西邊的！
原文:
The Mare Orientale, Latin for Eastern Sea, is one of the most striking large scale lunar features. The youngest of the large lunar impact basins it’s very difficult to see from an earthbound perspective. Still, captured on July 7 during a period of favorable tilt, or libration of the lunar nearside, the Eastern Sea can be found at the upper right in this sharp telescopic view. In the image, the large lunar mare is extremely foreshortened and stretches along the Moon’s western edge. Formed by the impact of an asteroid over 3 billion years ago and nearly 1000 kilometers across, the impact basin’s concentric circular features are ripples in the lunar crust. But they are a little easier to spot in more direct images of the region taken from lunar orbit. So why is the Eastern Sea at the Moon’s western edge? The Mare Orientale lunar feature was named before 1961. That’s when the convention labeling east and west on lunar maps was reversed.
來源:NASA每日圖片
