为月球车测试新轮子

为月球车测试新轮子

ByNASA中文

In this image from June 2023, an engineer watches a development model rover during a test for NASA’s Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration (CADRE) technology demonstration in the Mars Yard at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The team tested a new wheel design, surface navigation software, and mobility capabilities, among other aspects of the project. NASA is sending a trio of these miniature rovers to the Moon to see how well they can cooperate with one another without direct input from mission controllers back on Earth. About the size of a carry-on suitcase, each of the four-wheeled rovers will drive to find a sunbathing spot, where they’ll open their solar panels and charge up. Then they’ll spend the lunar daytime conducting experiments designed…

火星上空的火卫一

火星上空的火卫一

ByNASA中文

2023年7月31日 Phobos over Mars Image Credit: ESA, DLR, FU Berlin, Mars Express; Processing & CC BY 2.0 License: Andrea Luck Explanation: Why is Phobos so dark? Phobos, the largest and innermost of the two Martian moons, is the darkest moon in the entire Solar System. Its unusual orbit and color indicate that it may be a captured asteroid composed of a mixture of ice and dark rock. The featured assigned-color picture of Phobos near the edge of Mars was captured in late 2021 by ESA‘s robot spacecraft Mars Express, currently orbiting Mars. Phobos is a heavily cratered and barren moon, with its largest crater located on the far side. From images like this, Phobos has been determined to be covered by perhaps a meter of…

史蒂克妮坑

史蒂克妮坑

ByNASA中文

2023年7月8日 Stickney Crater Image Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA Explanation: Stickney Crater, the largest crater on the martian moon Phobos, is named for Chloe Angeline Stickney Hall, mathematician and wife of astronomer Asaph Hall. Asaph Hall discovered both the Red Planet’s moons in 1877. Over 9 kilometers across, Stickney is nearly half the diameter of Phobos itself, so large that the impact that blasted out the crater likely came close to shattering the tiny moon. This enhanced-color image of Stickney and surroundings was recorded by the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as it passed within some six thousand kilometers of Phobos in March of 2008. Even though the surface gravity of asteroid-like Phobos is less than 1/1000th Earth’s gravity, streaks suggest…

MAVEN的火星紫外影像

MAVEN的火星紫外影像

ByNASA中文

2023年6月27日 MAVEN’s Ultraviolet Mars Image Credit: MAVEN, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Univ. Colorado, NASA Explanation: These two global views of Mars were captured at ultraviolet wavelengths, beyond the spectrum visible to human eyes. Recorded by the MAVEN spacecraft’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument in July 2022 (left) and January 2023, three otherwise invisible ultraviolet bands are mapped into red, green, and blue colors. That color scheme presents the Red Planet’s surface features in shades of tan and green. Haze and clouds appear white or blue, while high altitude ozone takes on a dramatic purple hue. On the left, Mars’ south polar ice cap is in brilliant white at the bottom but shrinking during the southern hemisphere’s summer season. On the right, the northern hemisphere’s…