前往恒星的道路

2022年3月15日

A Road to the Stars
Image Credit: ESO, Petr Horálek (ESO Photo Ambassador, Inst. of Physics in Opava)

Explanation: Pictured — a very scenic road to the stars. The road approaches La Silla Observatory in Chile, with the ESO’s 3.6-meter telescope just up ahead. To the left are some futuristic-looking support structures for the planned BlackGEM telescopes, an array of optical telescopes that will help locate optical counterparts to gravitational waves detections by LIGO and other detectors. But there is much more. Red airglow illuminates the night sky on the right, while the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy slants across the image center. Jupiter can be seen just above the band near the image center, while Saturn is visible just above the 3.6-meter telescope dome. The two largest satellite galaxies of our Milky Way Galaxy, the LMC and SMC, are seen on the far right. The featured image panorama was built up from multiple 15-second exposures that were captured on 2019 June 30. Two days later, La Silla experienced a rare total eclipse of the Sun.

Tomorrow’s picture: the universe, illustrated

前往恒星的道路
影像提供: ESO, Petr Horálek (ESO Photo Ambassador, Inst. of Physics in Opava)

说明: 这张图呈现一条通往恒星、风景非常优美的道路。在这条通往智利拉西拉天文台的道路上，欧洲南方天文台的3.6米口径望远镜就在前方。左侧则是规划中的BlackGEM（黑宝石）望远镜的一些具有未来感之支撑结构，这个光学望远镜阵列，将协助LIGO和其他侦测器，进行它们侦测到的重力波光学对应天体的定位工作 。不过影像里还有非常多的亮点，例如：照亮右方的夜空的泛红气辉，而我们银河系的中央盘面斜贯过影像中心，影像中心的银河盘面上方有木星，而在3.6米望远镜圆顶上方可见到土星。我们银河系最大两个伴星系：大麦哲伦星系和小麦哲伦星系，位在影像的右缘附近。这幅全景主题影像，是由摄于2019年6月30日的多张15秒长曝光照片组合而成的。两天之后，拉西拉天文台迎来了罕见的日全食。

明日的图片: the universe, illustrated