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10 Quick Facts about the Moons in Our Solar System 10个我们太阳系中有关天然卫星的快问快答 Satellites take center stage today 如今卫星占据中心舞台 Planets and stars receive a lot of our attention, but we think that there is still plenty to go around. 行星和恒星受到了我们的很多关注，但我们认为还有很多事情要做。 The natural satellites of planets are called moons and they can be just as interesting (sometimes more) as planets. 行星的天然卫星被称为类月卫星，它们可以和行星一样有趣(有时甚至更多)。 We have a ton of bizarre phenomena and weird geological activity in the solar system and most of it takes place not on planets, but on the moons around them. 我们有大量奇异的现象和奇怪的地质活动在太阳系中，大部分不是发生在行星上，而是围绕在它们周围的类月卫星上。 So today we are looking at a few facts about them. 所以今天我们要看一些关于它们的事实。 1.how much of them.1.它们到底有多少个。
It’s pretty hard to tell. 这很难判断。 We are still discovering new ones because moons can be pretty tiny. 我们仍在发现新的行星，因为类月卫星非常小。 Right now we’re at 178. 现在是178（卫星）。 Just for the sake of clarity, we are only referring to moons that orbit planets, not satellites orbiting dwarf planets or any other kind of minor celestial objects. 为了清晰起见，我们指的是只绕着行星运行的卫星，而不是围绕矮行星或任何其他小天体运行的卫星。 If we included these, you’d have to add about 200 more. 如果我们把这些加进来，你还得再加200（个卫星）。 2.Moons can have strange shapes.2.类月卫星会有各种奇怪的形状。If you’ve ever wondered why most objects in the Universe eventually become round, the short answer is gravity. 如果你曾经想过为什么宇宙中的大多数物体最终会变成圆的，那么简单的答案就是引力。 However, you’ll probably also know that objects like asteroids or comets are not typically round because they are not large enough. 然而，你可能也会知道，像小行星或彗星这样的物体通常不是圆的，因为它们不够大。 There is a point when an object becomes sufficiently large that it starts to shape itself but, until then, it can take a lot of weird shapes. 当一个物体变得足够大时，它就会开始形成自己的形状，但在那之前，它会有很多奇怪的形状。 Since many moons are quite tiny, they take on many bizarre forms. 由于许多卫星都很微小，所以它们采用了许多奇异的形式。 For example, Pan kinda looks like a flying saucer from a cheesy 60s sci-fi movie. 例如，Pan kinda看起来就像是一部来自一部俗气的60年代科幻电影中的飞碟。 Deimos looks like a smooth stone you’d throw across the surface of a lake. 火卫二看起来就像一块光滑的石头，你会把它扔到湖面上。 Methone looks like an egg. 木卫三十二看起来像个鸡蛋。 3.Where are they all?3.它们都在哪里?
Photo: Kevin Gill via Flickr 图片: Kevin Gill via Flickr Most of these moons aren’t particularly significant because they are very tiny and they are orbiting really big things like the gas giants. 这些类月卫星的大部分都不是特别重要，因为它们非常小，它们围绕着像气态巨行星这样的大行星。 We are likely to find more each time we send a probe past the asteroid belt. 每次我们发射探测器穿过小行星带时，我们很可能会发现更多。 Out of the total 178 moons, most of them can be found around Jupiter and Saturn. 在总共178颗卫星中，大多数都可以在木星和土星周围找到。 Jupiter has the most moons with 67 and Saturn is close behind with 62. 木星的卫星最多，有67颗，土星紧随其后，有62颗。 4.Almost all planets have moons.4.几乎所有的行星都有类月近地卫星。Natural satellites are not uncommon and, as we can see above, the bigger the objects the more satellites it’s bound to have. 自然卫星并不少见，正如我们在上面看到的，物体越大，它就越有可能拥有更多的卫星。 Out of the eight planets in our solar system, six of them have moons. 在太阳系的八颗行星中，有六颗都有近地卫星。 All the gas giants have them in the double digits while Mars has two and we have one that we call simply the Moon…which isn’t confusing at all. 所有的气态巨行星都以两位数的速度存在，而火星有两个，我们有一个我们称之为近地卫星的，这一点都不让人感到困惑。 If you want to be fancy, you could refer to it by its Latin name, Luna. 如果你想要成为幻想，你可以用它的拉丁名字，Luna。 Venus and Mercury don’t have any satellites. 金星和水星没有任何卫星。 In case you are wondering about our notorious ex-planet Pluto (or is it?), it has five moons. 如果你想知道关于我们的臭名昭著的ex-planet冥王星(不是吗?),它有五个自然卫星。 5.Our Moon is pretty weird.5.我们的月亮很奇怪。
Photo Credit: Bluedharma via Flickr Photo Credit: Bluedharma via Flickr We’ve talked about the Moon already so we won’t go into too much detail, but the size of our Moon really is surprising. 我们已经讨论过近地卫星所以我们不会去深入太多的细节,但我们的月球的大小真的是令人惊讶的。 It’s not that it’s very big (although it is; it’s the fifth largest moon in the solar system), it’s more of how big it is compared to the planet it orbits (which is us). 这并不是说它是非常大的(尽管;它是太阳系中第五大),它有多大是相对于地球轨道(美国)。 Mars has two teeny-tiny moons called Phobos and Deimos, Venus and Mercury have nothing and Pluto has one reasonably big moon called Charon (although nowhere near the size of the Moon) and four tiny ones. 火星有两个细微极小的卫星火卫一和火卫二、金星和水星没有和冥王星有一个相当大的类月近地卫星叫摆渡的船夫(尽管无处不接近月亮的大小)和四个小的类月卫星。 We really don’t have anything similar to compare it to. 我们真的没有任何类似的东西可以与之相比。 All the other similarly sized moons orbit giants like Saturn and Jupiter. 所有其他类似大小的类月卫星都围绕着土星和木星这样的大行星运行。 6.They have volcanoes.6.它们有火山。We were pretty shocked when we found volcanic activity in other places other than Earth. 当我们在除地球以外的其他地方发现火山活动时，我们非常震惊。 So far, we know for certain of five places in the solar system with volcanoes: one is us, another is Venus and three are moons: Enceladus, Io and Triton. 到目前为止,我们确定的5位太阳系火山:一个是美国,另外一个是金星和三个卫星:土卫二,木卫一和海卫一。 Out of them all, Io is the most volcanically active object in the solar system. 在所有这些中，木卫一是太阳系中最活跃的活跃天体。 So far we’ve detected about 150 volcanoes on the Jovian moon and astronomers approximate that there could be around 400 total. 到目前为止，我们已经在木星的卫星上发现了大约150座火山，天文学家估计大约有400个火山。 7.Some volcanoes shoot ice.7.一些火山喷发出冰。
On an even cooler note, some of the aforementioned moons don’t just have volcanoes, but cryovolcanoes. 更酷的是，上面提到的一些卫星不仅有火山，还有冰火山。 This is something which isn’t found on Earth. 这是在地球上找不到的。 Basically, when the volcanoes erupt, they spit out a mixture of volatiles such as water, methane and ammonia. 基本上，当火山爆发时，它们会喷出水、甲烷和氨等挥发物的混合物。 This phenomenon was first observed on Neptune’s moon Triton and then on Enceladus. 这种现象被首次发现在海王星的海卫一和后来的木卫二上。 Circumstantial evidence point to other moons such as Ganymede and Titan having cryovolcanoes, as well. 间接证据指向其他卫星木卫三和木卫六上也有冰火山。 8.They are not as small as you would think.8.它们并不像你想象的那么小。The size of moons can vary wildly since giant planets have the gravitational pull necessary to form large satellites and keep them in orbit. 卫星的大小可能会有很大的变化，因为巨大的行星有足够的引力来形成大型的卫星并将它们保持在轨道上。 Ganymede is the largest moon in our planet, a satellite a Jupiter. 木卫三是最大的卫星在太阳系,木星的卫星。 It is followed pretty close by Titan, a moon of Saturn. 紧随其后的是土星的土卫木卫六。 Both of these are actually larger than the planet Mercury. 这两颗行星都比水星还要大。 9.Mimas is weird.9.木卫一很奇怪。
Mimas is a small moon of Saturn which has become something of a nerd favorite on the Internet. 木卫一是土星的一个小卫星，它已经成为互联网上的一个书呆子。 It is relatively unremarkable except for the fact that from a certain angle it looks an awful lot like the Death Star from Star Wars. 除了从某个角度看，它看起来非常像星球大战中的死亡之星。 Not only that, but if you look at a temperature map of the moon, it gets even better. 不仅如此，如果你看一看卫星的温度图，它会变得更好。 Again, this only works from a particular angle, but Mimas looks just like Pac Man and it even has a crater to symbolize a power pellet. 再一次，这只从一个特定的角度来工作，但木卫一看起来就像一个吃豆小精灵，甚至还有一个弹坑，象征着一个能量球。 10.They could have life on them.10.它们可以有生命。This isn’t just guesswork here. 这不仅仅是猜测。 Several moons are genuine candidates for extraterrestrial life. 几颗卫星是真正的外星生命的候选者。 They have suitable conditions to support or to have supported primitive life at some point. 他们有适当的条件来支持或支持原始生命。 As we’ve talked before, Jupiter’s moon Europa is seen as the likeliest candidate, but Titan also makes a good case for itself. 正如我们之前说过的，木星的卫星木卫二被认为是最有可能的候选者，但木卫六也为自己制造了/自己本身就是一个很好的例子。 Until recently, we didn’t really know what Titan actually looked like thanks to its very thick atmosphere, but now we can see that it looks surprisingly a lot like Earth. 直到最近，我们还不知道木卫六到底是什么样子的，因为它的大气层非常厚，但现在我们可以看到它的样子和地球很像 以上全部内容由我们天文志愿文章团队翻译至 http:///2015/09/04/10-quick-facts-about-the-moons-in-our-solar-system/ ，也欢迎您加入我们，若有错误，欢迎指出。 全文排版：南充天文在线（零度星系） |
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