研究發現月球正在生鏽

study: the moon is rusting

研究發現月球正在生鏽

The moon is turning red, and it's likely Earth's fault.

月球正在變紅，這很可能是地球的錯。

Our planet's atmosphere may be causing the moon to rust, new research finds.

最新研究發現，地球上的大氣層可能正讓月球慢慢生鏽。

Rust, also known as iron oxide, is a reddish compound that forms when iron is exposed to water and oxygen.

鐵鏽，也叫氧化鐵，是一種紅色的化合物。當鐵暴露於水和氧氣時，鐵鏽就會產生。

But not all celestial environments are optimal for rusting, especially our dry, atmosphere-free moon.

但並非所有的天體環境都適合鐵鏽的形成，尤其是乾燥、無大氣保護的月球。

"It's very puzzling," the study's lead author, Shuai Li of the University of Hawaii, said in a statement. "The moon is a terrible environment for [rust] to form in."

論文主要作者、來自夏威夷大學的李帥在一份聲明中說：“這非常令人費解。月球上的環境對鐵鏽的形成非常不友好。”

Li was studying data from the JPL Moon Mineralogy Mapper when he realized that the poles of the moon had very different compositions from the rest of it.

李帥在研究噴氣推進實驗室（JPL）月球礦物質繪圖儀收集的數據時，發現月球兩極的構造成分和其他地方大不一樣。

He found that the moon's polar surfaces had iron-rich rocks with spectral signatures that matched that of hematite.

他發現月球兩極表面有富含鐵質的岩石，其光譜特徵與赤鐵礦十分相似。

The mineral hematite, commonly found in Earth's surface, is a specific type of iron oxide, or rust, with the formula Fe2O3.

赤鐵礦常見於地球表面，是氧化鐵的一種礦物形式，分子式爲Fe2O3。

"At first, I totally didn't believe it. It shouldn't exist based on the conditions present on the moon," said co-author Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geoscientist at JPL. "But since we discovered water on the moon, people have been speculating that there could be a greater variety of minerals than we realize if that water had reacted with rocks."

"起初我完全不相信。根據月球上目前的環境，赤鐵礦幾乎沒有存在的可能性，"JPL行星地球科學家、論文的共同作者阿比蓋爾·弗雷曼說道，"但是，自從我們發現月球有水之後，人們一直在猜測，如果這些水和岩石發生反應的話，那麼月球上的礦物質種類可能比我們知道的要多很多。"

The moon doesn't have an atmosphere of its own to provide sufficient amounts of oxygen, but it has trace amounts donated by Earth's atmosphere.

月球上沒有大氣層可以提供足夠的氧氣，但卻有少量來自地球大氣層的氧氣。

This terrestrial oxygen travels to the moon along an elongated extension of the planet's magnetic field called a "magnetotail."

地球氧氣沿着行星磁場的延長部分（即“磁尾”）不遠萬里來到月球。

Earth's magnetotail can reach all the way to the near side of the moon, where more of the hematite was found, according to the statement.

聲明中寫道，地球的磁尾可以一直延伸到月球正面。在月球正面也確實發現了更多的赤鐵礦。