重訪米蘭達
Miranda Revisited
發表日期：2026-02-09
米蘭達究竟是什麼模樣？視覺上，美國宇航局"航海家 2 號"探測器拍攝的舊影像最近經過整合與修復，最終呈現出這張寬達 500 公里的天王星衛星特寫圖。 上世紀 80 年代末，航海家 2 號飛越天王星時，曾近距離探測這顆佈滿隕石坑、裂痕與奇特溝槽的衛星——其名源自莎士比亞《暴風雨》中的角色。科學家正藉助歷史資料與高畫質影像，重新推演米蘭達表面極端地貌的成因。 當前主流假說認為，米蘭達冰層之下可能曾存在廣闊液態水海洋，如今正緩慢凍結。得益於"航海家 2 號"的探測成果，米蘭達已與木衛二、土衛六等冰衛星共同成為太陽系內尋找水源乃至微生物生命的重點目標。拼圖衛星：每日天文謎題
原文：What is Miranda really like? Visually, old images from NASA's Voyager 2 have been recently combined and remastered to result in the featured image of Uranus's 500-kilometer-wide moon. In the late 1980s, Voyager 2 flew by Uranus, coming close to the cratered, fractured, and unusually grooved moon -- named after a character from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Scientifically, planetary scientists are using old data and clear images to theorize anew about what shaped Miranda's severe surface features. A leading hypothesis is that Miranda, beneath its icy surface, may have once hosted an expansive liquid water ocean which may be slowly freezing. Thanks to the legacy of Voyager 2, Miranda has joined the ranks of Europa, Titan, and other icy moons in the search for water, and, possibly, microbial life, in our Solar System. Jigsaw Moon: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day
※ 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。