冥卫一：冥王星的卫星
(原标题: Charon: Moon of Pluto)
2023-06-03
浏览次数: 20
黑暗而神秘的北极地区被一些人称为魔多马丘拉，这是这张首次高分辨率的照片。2015年7月14日，新视野号在其最接近冥王星的地方拍摄到了冥王星最大的卫星卡戎的照片。这些结合了蓝色、红色和红外的数据经过处理，增强了颜色，并以2.9公里（1.8英里）的分辨率跟踪了冥卫一表面特性的变化。这张令人惊叹的卡戎面向冥王星的半球的照片，还清晰地显示了一个明显的月球环带，裂缝和峡谷似乎将光滑的南部平原与变化多端的北部地形分开。冥卫一直径1214公里（754英里）。这大约是地球大小的1/10，但直径却是冥王星的1/2，这使它成为太阳系中相对于其母天体最大的卫星。尽管如此，在左上角插入的这张颗粒状的负向望远镜图片中，这颗卫星在冥王星圆盘上大约1点钟的位置上出现了一个小凸起。1978年6月，位于弗拉格斯塔夫的美国海军天文台的詹姆斯·克里斯蒂和罗伯特·哈林顿利用这一视角发现了卡戎。
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A darkened and mysterious north polar region known to some as Mordor Macula caps this premier high-resolution view. The portrait of Charon, Pluto's largest moon, was captured by New Horizons near the spacecraft's closest approach on July 14, 2015. The combined blue, red, and infrared data was processed to enhance colors and follow variations in Charon's surface properties with a resolution of about 2.9 kilometers (1.8 miles). A stunning image of Charon's Pluto-facing hemisphere, it also features a clear view of an apparently moon-girdling belt of fractures and canyons that seems to separate smooth southern plains from varied northern terrain. Charon is 1,214 kilometers (754 miles) across. That's about 1/10th the size of planet Earth but a whopping 1/2 the diameter of Pluto itself, and makes it the largest satellite relative to its parent body in the Solar System. Still, the moon appears as a small bump at about the 1 o'clock position on Pluto's disk in the grainy, negative,telescopic picture inset at upper left. That view was used by James Christy and Robert Harrington at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Flagstaff to discover Charon in June of 1978.