保护地球，探索宇宙，发现文明
9月24日周日清晨，OSIRIS-REx航天器的样本舱将自2016年发射以来首次与地球大气层面对面接触。航天器上估计有8.8盎司（250克）的岩石物质，这些物质是2020年从贝努表面收集，这是NASA的第一个小行星样本，也是迄今为止在太空中收集的最大的小行星样本。 当OSIRIS-REx航天器接近地球时，它不会因为样本释放而减速。相反，当它到达地球表面以上63,000英里（或102,000公里）时——大约是地球到月球距离的三分之一——地面操作人员发出的一条信息将触发太空舱的释放，太空舱将被送入下方的大气层。释放太空舱20分钟后，航天器将启动其推进器，绕过地球，转向小行星阿波菲斯，在那里它将以一个新的名字——OSIRIS-APEX （OSIRIS-Apophis Explorer），继续研究我们的太阳系。 与此同...
Support teams onboard the SpaceX recovery ship MEGAN work to open the hatch of the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft shortly after it landed in the Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 4, 2023, with NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, United Arab Emirates (UAE) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev aboard. Bowen, Hoburg, Alneyadi,...
2023年9月8日 Star Factory Messier 17 Image Credit & Copyright: Kim Quick, Terry Hancock, and Tom Masterson (Grand Mesa Observatory) Explanation: Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, the star factory known as Messier 17 lies some 5,500 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation Sagittarius. At that distance, this 1/3 degree wide field of view spa...
This colorful image of the globular star cluster Terzan 12 is a spectacular example of how dust in space affects starlight coming from background objects. A globular star cluster is a conglomeration of stars, arranged in a spheroidal shape. Stars in globular clusters are bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards the center. The ...
2023年9月7日 The Large Cloud of Magellan Image Credit & Copyright: Chris Willocks Explanation: The 16th century Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan and his crew had plenty of time to study the southern sky during the first circumnavigation of planet Earth. As a result, two fuzzy cloud-like objects easily visible to southern hemisphere skygazers are kno...
A recovery team member takes part in field rehearsals in preparation for the retrieval of the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission in this image from Aug. 29, 2023. The sample of rocks and dust, which the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collected from the asteroid Bennu in Oct. 2020, will return to Earth on Sept. 24, safely landing at the Departm...
2023年9月6日 HESS Telescopes Explore the High-Energy Sky Credit & Copyright: Video Credit & Copyright: Jeff Dai (TWAN), H.E.S.S. Collaboration; Music: Ibaotu catalog number 1044988 (Used with permission) Explanation: They may look like modern mechanical dinosaurs, but they are enormous swiveling eyes that watch the sky. The High Energy Stereoscopic Sy...
On Sept. 5, 1977, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft lifts off atop its Titan/Centaur-6 launch vehicle from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, now Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, in Florida. Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, were originally launched to conduct closeup studies of Jupiter and Saturn, Saturn’s rings, and the larger...
2023年9月5日 Blue Supermoon Beyond Syracuse Credit & Copyright: Kevin Saragozza Explanation: The last full moon was doubly unusual. First of all, it was a blue moon. A modern definition of a blue moon is a second full moon to occur during one calendar month. Since there are 13 full moons in 2023, one month has to have two — and that month was August....
2023年9月4日 Cygnus: Bubble and Crescent Credit & Copyright: Abdullah Al-Harbi Explanation: As stars die, they create clouds. Two stellar death clouds of gas and dust can be found toward the high-flying constellation of the Swan (Cygnus) as they drift through rich star fields in the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. Caught here within the telescopic field of ...