汞的钠尾
(原标题: Mercury's Sodium Tail)
2022-05-03
浏览次数: 15
那不是彗星。在昴宿星团的下面实际上有一颗行星：水星。长时间曝光我们太阳系最里面的行星可能会发现一些意想不到的东西：尾巴。水星稀薄的大气层中含有少量的钠，当受到来自太阳的光激发时会发光。阳光也会将这些原子从水星表面释放出来，并将它们推开。尤其是钠发出的黄光，相对来说比较亮。在上周从西班牙拉帕尔马拍摄的一张深空照片中，可以看到水星和它的钠尾巴，通过一个主要透射钠发出的黄光的滤镜。水星的尾巴在2001年首次被发现，并在20世纪80年代被首次预测。2011年至2015年间，美国宇航局的信使号探测器绕水星运行，在多次观测中揭示了许多尾部细节。当然，尾巴通常与彗星联系在一起。
查看原文解释
That's no comet. Below the Pleiades star cluster is actually a planet: Mercury. Long exposures of our Solar System's innermost planet may reveal something unexpected: a tail. Mercury's thin atmosphere contains small amounts of sodium that glow when excited by light from the Sun. Sunlight also liberates these atoms from Mercury's surface and pushes them away. The yellow glow from sodium, in particular, is relatively bright. Pictured, Mercury and its sodium tail are visible in a deep image taken last week from La Palma, Spain through a filter that primarily transmits yellow light emitted by sodium. First predicted in the 1980s, Mercury's tail was first discovered in 2001. Many tail details were revealed in multiple observations by NASA's robotic MESSENGER spacecraft that orbited Mercury between 2011 and 2015. Tails, of course, are usually associated with comets.
© Sebastian Voltmer