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Saturday, September 12, 2009

The Planet Jupiter


Video Transcript:
What’s Up for September: Jupiter
Hello and welcome. I’m Jane Houston Jones at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

2009 is International Year of Astronomy. Each month this year we’ll be showcasing a great celestial object, and this month it’s the planet Jupiter. We’ll also be telling you about Juno, a mission to that giant planet, which launches in 2011.

Jupiter is the brightest object in the evening sky this month. Through a telescope you can see cloud bands on Jupiter. In July a small comet or icy body crashed into Jupiter’s southern polar area and left a black bruise. This new, dark feature was discovered by Anthony Wesley, an amateur astronomer in Australia. This spot captivated Jupiter observers for over a month while Jupiter’s atmosphere distorted its shape. And it finally dissipated. This amazing feature has been imaged and studied by amateur and professional astronomers around the world.

Jupiter also has four large satellites, three of which are larger than our own moon. These four moons were discovered by Galileo 400 years ago. You can see them yourself with a small telescope or even binoculars,and watch them move around the planet just as Galileo did!

NASA’s spacecraft named for Galileo ended its exploration of Jupiter six years ago. The next mission to Jupiter, called Juno, will launch in 2011. Juno will be the first solar-powered spacecraft to visit an outer planet and the first to have a polar orbit around an outer planet. This gives Juno a unique view of the planet, including the polar auroras – the northern and southern lights. It also lets the spacecraft get very close to Jupiter, while avoiding the planet’s dangerous radiation belts. Juno will look for important clues about Jupiter's formation by measuring how much water is there. It will also investigate the planet’s internal structure, searching for a central core, and will learn how and where inside the planet Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field is generated. The mission will look deeper into Jupiter than we’ve ever been able to before to see how the planet’s visible atmosphere
and features, like the famous Great Red Spot, are shaped by currents in Jupiter’s deep interior.

Jupiter rules the evening skies this month, so go out and take a look!

And Juno arrives at this king of the planets in 2016. There’s one other object in the evening sky this month worth mentioning. The asteroid Juno,one of the first four asteroids ever discovered, is bright enough to see with a pair of binoculars this month. All you have to know is where to look.

You can learn all about NASA’s missions at www.nasa.gov.

That’s all for this month. I’m Jane Houston Jones.

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九月星空木星

在本()月份,吃過晚飯出去散步,會發現偏東方有一顆最亮的星,就是木星。透過望遠鏡看木星,可以看到它的條紋雲帶。

今年(2009)七月,有一顆小彗星撞上木星的南極地區,留下一個黑色疤痕。七月20日,澳洲的業餘天文學家Anthony Wesley(安東尼˙衛斯理)發現這個新的黑斑,接下來的一個多月,木星大氣逐漸扭曲黑斑的形狀,終致消失。

木星有四顆大衛星,其中三顆比我們的月亮還大。這四棵木星的月亮是伽利略在四百年前發現的,透過小望遠鏡,甚至雙筒望遠鏡就可以看到。如果觀測時間長一點,你會像加利略一樣,發現它們繞著木星運動。

NASA(美國太空總署)的伽利略號太空船對木星的探測任務已經在六年前結束。新的木星任務叫「Juno(朱諾,或婚神星)」,將於2011年發射,2016年到達木星。Juno將是第一艘拜訪外行星的太陽動力太空船,也是第一艘以繞極軌道環繞外行星的太空船。這使Juno得以獨特的角度來觀察木星,包括對木星南北極光的觀測。也使Juno得以在非常靠近木星的軌道上運轉,同時避開其危險的輻射帶。Juno太空船將藉由測量木星上有多少水來尋找木星形成的重要線索。同時也要研究木星的內部構造,搜尋期中心核,以及木星的強力磁場產生於內部何處,又如何產生。

這個任務將比以往更能深入了解木星的大氣及其構造,如大紅斑 ,其形狀如何受到深層內部的大氣流動影響。

本月份的前半夜,在你睡覺之前,帶著雙筒望眼鏡,到外面去看看那顆目前全天最亮的星木星,再順便看一下Juno(婚神)小行星。婚神星是四顆最早發現的小行星之一。

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