Neptune’s Weird Dark Spot Just Got Weirder
海王星拥有太阳系中最奇怪的天气。这个太阳的第八颗行星保持着世界上观测到的风速最快的记录,其穿过大气层的速度高达每小时1100英里,相当于音速的1.5倍。科学家们仍然不知道它的大气层为什么如此混乱。他们对海王星的最新观测提供了更令人困惑的发现。
Neptune boasts some of the strangest weather in the solar system. The sun’s eighth planet holds the record for the fastest winds observed on any world, with speeds cutting through the atmosphere upward of 1,100 miles per hour, or 1.5 times the speed of sound. Scientists still don’t know exactly why its atmosphere is so tumultuous. Their latest glimpse of Neptune provided even more reason to be confused.
哈勃太空望远镜在2018年发现了一个风暴,一个直径约4600英里的黑点。根据哈勃望远镜的最新观测,从那时起,它似乎已经向赤道漂移,但随后又飞回北方。它还有一个较小的伴生风暴,昵称为小黑点,科学家认为这可能是主风暴爆发的一大块。这些墨色漩涡与地球上令人眩晕的蓝蓝色形成鲜明对比,但尽管它们令人眼花缭乱,但它们的寿命却很短,这使得它们的研究更具挑战性。
The Hubble Space Telescope identified a storm in 2018, a dark spot some 4,600 miles across. Since that time, it appears to have drifted toward the equator but then swooped back up north, according to the latest Hubble observations. It also has a smaller companion storm, nicknamed Dark Spot Jr., that scientists think might be a chunk that broke off the main storm. These inky vortexes stand out against the dizzying cerulean blue of the planet, but while they’re dazzling to see, their life spans are short, making them even more challenging to study.
翻译:STARSET_Mirror翻译组
审校:STARSET_Mirror翻译组