卡西尼号拍摄的土星的颜色
(原标题: The Colors of Saturn from Cassini)
2024-06-23
浏览次数: 23
是什么形成了土星的颜色？这张土星的特写照片只是稍微夸大了人类在这个巨大的光环世界附近徘徊时所看到的景象。这张照片是由卡西尼号宇宙飞船于2005年拍摄的，该飞船于2004年至2017年绕土星运行。在这张图中，土星雄伟的光环直接呈现为一条曲线，呈棕色，部分原因是它的红外线。这些环在行星上部形成的阴影中最好地展示了它们复杂的结构。土星的北半球部分呈现蓝色的原因与地球的天空呈现蓝色的原因相同——两颗行星大气中无云部分的分子散射蓝光比散射红光更好。然而，当深入观察土星的云层时，土星云层的自然金色色调成为主导。目前尚不清楚为什么土星南部没有显示出同样的蓝色色调——一种假设认为那里的云层更高。也不知道为什么土星的一些云是金色的。
查看原文解释
What creates Saturn's colors? The featured picture of Saturn only slightly exaggerates what a human would see if hovering close to the giant ringed world. The image was taken in 2005 by the robot Cassini spacecraft that orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017. Here Saturn's majestic rings appear directly only as a curved line, appearing brown, in part from its infrared glow. The rings best show their complex structure in the dark shadows they create across the upper part of the planet. The northern hemisphere of Saturn can appear partly blue for the same reason that Earth's skies can appear blue -- molecules in the cloudless portions of both planet's atmospheres are better at scattering blue light than red. When looking deep into Saturn's clouds, however, the natural gold hue of Saturn's clouds becomes dominant. It is not known why southern Saturn does not show the same blue hue -- one hypothesis holds that clouds are higher there. It is also not known why some of Saturn's clouds are colored gold.