Receive email when this blog changes

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.

Find this article at:

For more informations, please visit the following links:

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。

請參考下列網頁以獲得更多資訊:

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

The Sun Was Walking His Dogs During Sunset!


These pictures were taken at about 5:30 on Sep. 3, 2007 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The Sun was flanked by two sundogs.

Sundog, also called parhelion or mock sun, is an atmospheric optical phenomenon. It forms when sunlight is refracted by horizontally oriented hexagonal plate ice crystals with diameters larger than 30 micrometers.

The following links provide two more sundog pictures from NASA:
APOD: 2006 September 23 - Triple Sunrise
APOD: 1999 August 23 - Sundogs over the VLA

For more deeper information, please visit the following websites:
Sundogs: mock suns or parhelia
Sundogs (parhelia)


太陽溜狗

2007/9/3下午大約5:30時高雄西方天空突然出現異象。太陽兩旁約22度位置與太陽同高處出現兩個彩色光點,右邊光點維持約3分鐘後消失,左邊光點則持續到日落。這個大氣光學現象稱為「幻日」,又稱「假日」,英文俗稱「日狗」。

「幻日」是由於陽光被六角形扁平冰晶的垂直面折射所致。產生幻日的冰晶直徑要大於30微米,下落時像落葉因空氣阻力使得扁平面保持水平。

下列「幻日」圖片是成功大學翻譯的NASA每日一圖中文網頁:

相關中文解釋請看:
大氣光象
大氣的光與色彩
(Photos by author)

Friday, June 29, 2007

Sunrise with Corona from Southern Central Mountains in Taiwan

A beautiful corona captured in February 'o3 by Edward Lin at Lidao, a small township in southern Central Mountain Range, Taiwan.

A corona forms as sunlight is diffracted by small particles, e.g. cloud droplets, small ice crystals. It is much smaller than 22 degrees halo.
日華乍現日出南橫

照片拍攝於2003年2月,南橫利稻。「」是光線被高空中的微粒(如微小水滴或冰晶)繞射形成的現象,對太陽而言就叫日華,對月亮則是月華。「 華」比「」小許多,而且成因不同。

Thursday, June 28, 2007

A Sun Halo Over Kaohsiung, Taiwan

These pictures were taken in Kaohsiung at noon on June 28, 2007.

Is it a circular rainbow? No. It's a sun halo. When sunlight passes through an ice crystal, it is refracted. It bends 22 degrees toward the observer from its original direction. The formation of a halo is different from that of a rainbow. A rainbow develops when sunlight enters a water droplet and is refracted and reflected. The sunlight bends about 140 degrees for primary rainbow and about 130 degrees for secondary rainbow from its original direction.

There are some pictures with brief explanations about sun halo from NASA:
1. APOD: 2006 April 11 - A Sun Halo over Utah
2. APOD: 2006 June 13 - Driving Toward a Sun Halo
3. APOD: 2002 January 14 - Sun Halo at Winter Solstice

Here is a wonderful website, Atmospheric Optics.

日暈現高雄

今天(2007/6/28)中午高雄出現日暈。日暈不是彩虹。當光線穿過高空的冰晶時,因折射而偏離原來方向22度,就會在光源周圍形成22度暈,光源如果是太陽就叫日暈,如果是月亮就叫月暈。
彩虹則是太陽光經高空中的小水滴折射及反射所形成,對虹而言光線偏離原方向約140度,而霓(即第二道彩虹,在虹的外圍)則偏離約130度。

下面是有關日暈的一些網站,NASA提供,成大物理系翻譯:
APOD: 2006 April 11 - A Sun Halo over Utah
APOD: 2006 June 13 - Driving Toward a Sun Halo
APOD: 2002 January 14 - Sun Halo at Winter Solstice

這個網站很棒,值得用力推薦,可惜沒有翻譯!Atmospheric Optics

Saturday, June 9, 2007

CPC Has Changed Its Name!

CPC Stands for Chinese Petroleum Corporation no more! Its name has changed from the abbreviation, CPC, to just a name CPC Corporation. In other words, CPC stands for nothing now, and is just a name but cannot pronounce.

「國石」已移除

「國石」--「國」家的「石」頭 終於搬掉了!中油終於只是一個名字,不再代表「中國石油」,不過不知「中」代表什麼?是象形字嗎?「口」代表地層?「l」代表穿過地層的鑽油井?

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Owl Police Station

Do the polices stay up all night like the owls?

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

One Street, Two Names!

Look at the road signs! U disappeared after crossing the street!
今天等紅燈的時候,突然發現原來不只「橘逾淮則枳」,「Chinese Taipei」中華台北越過海峽可以變成「中國台北」,延吉街Yanji St. 越過紅綠燈就變成了Yuanji St. ,也許過馬路要來一段Yuanji Dance (元極舞)。