我們的月亮比你想象的更豐富多彩

我們的月亮比你想象的更豐富多彩

Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy, who last year dropped jaws with a stunningly clear composite photo of the moon made up of 50,000 exposures, is back with a more colorful take on our closest celestial neighbor.

天體攝影師安德魯·麥卡錫去年拍攝了一張令人驚嘆的清晰合成的月球照片，由5萬張曝光量組成，帶著對我們最近的天體鄰居的更豐富多彩的看法回來了。

A wide shot of the moon in all its colorful glory as captured from more than 100,000 photographs. (Photo: Andrew McCarthy/@Cosmic_background)

This time, McCarthy composed his first lunar image of 2020 with a blend of around 100,000 exposures taken from his backyard in Sacramento, California. "[This] allowed me to sharpen the image and overcome some of the fuzzing caused by our turbulent atmosphere," he wrote on Instagram.

這一次，麥卡錫在他位于加州薩克拉門托的后院用10萬張曝光照片合成了他的第一張2020年月球圖像。他在Instagram上寫道:“(這)讓我能夠銳化圖像，克服我們動蕩的氛圍帶來的一些模糊感。”

A closeup of the moon's variation in regolith color. (Photo: Andrew McCarthy/@Cosmic_background)

As McCarthy explains, the colors in these images are real and caused by variations in the composition of the lunar soil or regolith. Formed over billions of years by constant meteorite impacts, lunar soil is estimated by scientists to extend from 3-4 meters (13 feet) to more than 15 meters (50 feet) in the older highlands down to bedrock.

麥卡錫解釋說，這些圖像中的顏色是真實的，是由月球土壤或風(fēng)化層組成的變化造成的。據(jù)科學(xué)家估計，月球土壤是在數(shù)十億年的時間里由不斷的隕石撞擊形成的，在古老的高地上，從3-4米(13英尺)一直延伸到15米(50英尺)多，一直延伸到基巖。

According to McCarthy, shots like this one — when the moon is in its first quarter phase — are the best way to show crater detail. (Photo: Andrew McCarthy/@Cosmic_background)

Besides hints of blue and green, the lunar soil also contains orange hues. During the Apollo 17 mission to the moon, astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt were surprised to discover orange soil lurking just beneath the thin veneer of white.

除了藍(lán)色和綠色的暗示，月球土壤還含有橙色的色調(diào)。在阿波羅17號執(zhí)行登月任務(wù)期間，宇航員吉恩·塞爾南和哈里森·施密特驚訝地發(fā)現(xiàn)，在薄薄的白色表層下隱藏著橙色的土壤。

"Oh, hey! Wait a minute... there is orange soil! It's all over! I stirred it up with my feet!," exclaimed Schmitt to Mission Control. Upon further examination, the orange color was found to be volcanic glass, ejected some 3-4 billion years earlier during a lunar eruption.

“哦,嘿!等一下…那里有橙色的土壤!一切都結(jié)束了!我用腳把它攪了起來!施密特對地面指揮中心喊道。進(jìn)一步的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，橙色是火山玻璃，大約在30億到40億年前的一次月球噴發(fā)中噴出。

A composite shot of January 2020's full Wolf Moon as captured by Andrew McCarthy. (Photo: Andrew McCarthy/@Cosmic_background)

As McCarthy says, these colors from Earth would be easier to pick out if our eyes were just a bit more sensitive. Nonetheless, their presence is a beautiful reminder that the moon is a lot more complex and colorful that we otherwise might think.

正如麥卡錫所說，如果我們的眼睛稍微敏感一點，這些來自地球的顏色就會更容易識別。盡管如此，它們的存在是一個美麗的提醒，提醒我們月球比我們想象的要復(fù)雜得多，色彩豐富得多。

"I find the color really helps tell the story of how some of these features formed billions of years ago," he adds.

他補充道:“我發(fā)現(xiàn)這種顏色確實有助于解釋這些特征在數(shù)十億年前是如何形成的。”