科学家解开土星卫星恩克拉多斯上的“虎纹”之谜

Saturn’s moon Enceladus has been shrouded in mystery since its discovery in the late 18th century, but now researchers believe they have solved what causes the moon’s “tiger stripes,” according to a new study.

土星的卫星恩克拉多斯自18世纪晚期被发现以来一直笼罩在神秘之中，但根据一项新的研究，现在研究人员相信他们已经解决了导致月球“虎纹”的原因。

The “tiger stripes,” which were first spotted by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, are evenly spaced fissures, approximately 130 kilometers long and 35 kilometers apart. Icy material from Enceladus’ ocean gets shot into them, an observation that has stumped scientists.

“虎纹”最早是由美国宇航局的卡西尼号宇宙飞船发现的，它是均匀分布的裂缝，长约130公里，间隔35公里。来自土卫二海洋的冰冷物质被射入土卫二，这一观测结果让科学家们感到困惑。

“First seen by the Cassini mission to Saturn, these stripes are like nothing else known in our Solar System,” the study’s lead author, Doug Hemingway, said in a statement.

这项研究的主要作者道格·海明威(Doug Hemingway)在一份声明中说:“卡西尼号第一次前往土星时发现，这些条纹与我们太阳系中已知的其他任何东西都不一样。”

“They are parallel and evenly spaced, about 130 kilometers long and 35 kilometers apart. What makes them especially interesting is that they are continually erupting with water ice, even as we speak. No other icy planets or moons have anything quite like them.”

“它们是平行的，间隔均匀，大约130公里长，35公里宽。让它们特别有趣的是，即使在我们说话的时候，它们也在不断地喷出水冰。没有其他的冰态行星或卫星有类似的东西。”

Due to its odd orbit, Enceladus, the sixth-largest of Saturn’s 62 confirmed moons, isn’t frozen solid, despite it being icy. So it stretches the ice sheets, which are thin and easily split open, the researchers found. It just so happens the stripes on the south pole cracked ahead of those on the north pole.

由于其奇怪的轨道，土卫二，土星62个确定的卫星中的第六大卫星，并没有被冻结成固体，尽管它是冰的。研究人员发现，这样一来，冰层就会变薄，很容易裂开。碰巧南极的条纹比北极的条纹更早裂开。

The first stripe, named after the city of Baghdad, stayed open, causing the other stripes to become parallel. As the water rose from the first strip, the “stripes” formed.

第一道条纹以巴格达市命名，并保持开放，使得其他条纹平行。当水从第一排上升时，“条纹”就形成了。

Hemingway and the other researchers noted that they’ve been able to study Enceladus’ ocean, thanks to these fissures, which continue to widen and narrow over time.

海明威和其他研究人员指出，他们之所以能够研究土卫二的海洋，是因为这些裂缝随着时间的推移不断扩大和缩小。

“Since it is thanks to these fissures that we have been able to sample and study Enceladus’ subsurface ocean, which is beloved by astrobiologists, we thought it was important to understand the forces that formed and sustained them,” the researcher said.

研究人员说:“正是由于这些裂缝，我们才能够对土卫二的地下海洋进行取样和研究。”土卫二深得天体生物学家的喜爱。

“Our modeling of the physical effects experienced by the moon’s icy shell points to a potentially unique sequence of events and processes that could allow for these distinctive stripes to exist.”

“我们对月球冰壳所经历的物理效应的建模，指出了一个潜在的独特的事件和过程序列，可能允许这些独特的条纹存在。”

The research has been published in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy.

这项研究发表在科学杂志《自然天文学》上。