火星表面的藍色隕石坑讓天文學(xué)家們驚嘆不已

Blue crater on the Martian surface wows astronomers

A stunning blue crater has been discovered on the surface of Mars.

在火星表面發(fā)現(xiàn)了一個驚人的藍色隕石坑。

The 16m-wide pockmark was photographed by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in April, using its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.

今年4月，美國宇航局的火星勘測軌道飛行器，用高分辨率成像科學(xué)實驗(HiRISE)相機拍攝到了這個16米寬的隕石坑。

The stunning image shows streaks of grey exploding from the impact site, one side glowing blue.

這張令人震驚的照片顯示，從撞擊地點爆炸所顯示的灰色條紋中，有一邊閃耀著藍色。

(Photo credit: NASA)

"That has not yet been confirmed, but commonly, when a HiRISE image of a new impact shows a blue area, it is sometimes water ice," HiRISE team member Veronica Bray told CNN.

“雖然還沒有得到證實，但通常情況下，HiRISE拍攝的撞擊圖像顯示出藍色區(qū)域時，有時是冰塊，”Hirise團隊成員Veronica Bray告訴CNN。

It's not clear when the crater was formed. The orbiter can't cover the whole planet at once, so NASA's best estimate is it was formed somewhere between September 2016 and February 2019, by a meteorite about 1.5m across.

目前還不清楚該隕石坑是何時形成的。這顆人造衛(wèi)星無法同時檢測整個火星，所以美國宇航局給出的的最佳估計是，它是在2016年9月至2019年2月之間的某個地方，由一顆直徑約1.5米的隕石形成的。

A rock that size wouldn't have made it to Earth's surface, burning up in our much thicker atmosphere.

這個體積的巖石不太可能到達地球表面，因為它會在地球厚厚的大氣層中燃燒殆盡。

"It's a gorgeous [crater]," Bray told space.com.

布雷向space.com表示，“這是一個美麗的隕石坑。”

Whether it's ice or not will be hard to determine, as the instrument onboard that measures that kind of thing is well past its use-by date. The orbiter was launched in 2005, and only expected to function for two years once in orbit around Mars.

由于衛(wèi)星上用來測量這種物質(zhì)的儀器早已過時，所以是不是冰將很難確定。這顆人造衛(wèi)星于2005年發(fā)射，當(dāng)時的預(yù)期只是進入火星軌道運行兩年。

NASA's next Mars mission, tentatively titled Mars 2020, is expected to include a drone that will launch from the space /agency's next rover.

美國宇航局的下一個火星任務(wù)，暫定名為“火星2020”，預(yù)計從航天局的下一個探測器發(fā)射出來的會有一架無人機。