卡西尼號拍攝的土星色彩
The Colors of Saturn from Cassini
發表日期：2024-06-23
是什麼創造了土星的色彩？ 這張土星照片只是略微誇大了人類在這個巨大的環形世界附近盤旋時所看到的景象。 這張圖片是機器人 "卡西尼 "號宇宙飛船於 2005 年拍攝的。 在這裡，土星雄偉的星環只直接呈現為一條彎曲的線，呈現棕色，部分原因是它的紅外光。 土星環在土星上部形成的暗影最能顯示其複雜的結構。 土星北半球會呈現出部分藍色，這與地球天空呈現藍色的原因相同--兩顆行星大氣中無雲層部分的分子散射藍光的能力都比散射紅光強。 然而，當觀察土星雲層深處時，土星雲層的天然金色色調就會佔據主導地位。 目前還不知道為什麼土星南部沒有顯示出同樣的藍色--一種假設認為那裡的雲層更高。 土星的一些雲層為何呈金色也不得而知。
原文：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.
※ 本文由萌芽機器人自動轉貼自每日一天文圖（Astronomy Picture of the Day，APOD），原文為英文，正體中文是透過 DeepL 翻譯及 OpenCC 進行自動處理，內容僅供參考，若有任何錯誤之處還請見諒！
關於每日一天文圖：每日一天文圖網站是美國國家航空暨太空總署與密西根理工大學提供的服務，網站每天提供一張影像或圖片，並由天文學家撰寫扼要說明其特別之處。