木星大紅斑附近的風正在加速

The Great Red Spot visible on Jupiter is a swirling anticyclonic storm, the largest of its kind in the Solar System – large enough to fit our entire planet within. Now, a new analysis has revealed the winds around the edge of the spot are mysteriously speeding up.

木星上可見的大紅斑是一個旋轉(zhuǎn)的反氣旋風暴，是太陽系中同類風暴中最大的一個——大到足以容納我們整個星球。現(xiàn)在，一項新的分析顯示，該地點邊緣的風正在神秘地加速。

Using data collected from the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers looked at the patterns of the storm from 2009 to 2020, measuring a wind speed increase in the outer edge of 8 percent over that time.

利用從哈勃太空望遠鏡收集的數(shù)據(jù)，研究人員觀察了2009年至2020年的風暴模式，測量出在這段時間內(nèi)，風暴外緣的風速增加了8%。

That's an increase of a little less than 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) per hour for every year that measurements were taken – not huge, but significant, and only measurable because of the high-resolution imagery that Hubble is able to capture.

在每年的測量中，這一增長率略低于每小時2.5公里(1.5英里)——不是很大，但意義重大，而且只有哈勃能夠捕捉到高分辨率圖像才能測量。

Outer and inner ring wind speeds. (Wong et al, Geophysical Research Letters, 2021)

外圈和內(nèi)圈風速。(Wong等人，《地球物理研究快報》，2021年)

"When I initially saw the results, I asked 'Does this make sense?' No one has ever seen this before," says planetary scientist Michael Wong, from the University of California, Berkeley.

“當我最初看到結(jié)果時，我問‘這有意義嗎?’以前沒有人見過這種情況，”加州大學伯克利分校的行星科學家Michael Wong說。

With the colored clouds on the edges of the storm now reaching speeds of up to 640 kilometers (398 miles) per hour in a counter-clockwise direction, the next question is what's causing the acceleration – and there's no easy answer to that.

由于風暴邊緣的彩云現(xiàn)在以逆時針方向達到了640公里(398英里)每小時的速度，下一個問題是什么導致了加速——這個問題沒有簡單的答案。

Some possibilities were ruled out by the study and the collected data though: neither changes in the wind shear (or angle) from the surrounding atmosphere, nor changes in temperature across different altitudes are thought to be responsible. For now, the underlying cause eludes experts.

然而，這項研究和收集的數(shù)據(jù)排除了一些可能性:無論是來自周圍大氣的風切變(或角度)的變化，還是不同海拔高度的溫度變化，都與此無關(guān)。目前，專家尚不清楚潛在原因。

We know from previous research that the Great Red Spot is shrinking in size over time, which is another mystery to be solved: until more direct and more detailed measurements of the gigantic storm can be taken, we're going to have a lot of unanswered questions.

從之前的研究中我們知道，隨著時間的推移，大紅斑的大小正在縮小，這是另一個有待解決的謎團：在對這場巨大風暴進行更直接、更詳細的測量之前，我們將面臨許多懸而未決的問題。

Astronomers have been observing Jupiter's most recognizable feature since the 17th century, with continuous observations recorded since 1878. Across that time it's become more circular, as well as getting smaller.

自17世紀以來，天文學家一直在觀測木星最易辨認的特征，自1878年以來一直有記錄。隨著時間的推移，它變得越來越圓，也越來越小。