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Imagine living in a place where you're surrounded by the sharp smell of ozone and hot, dry air.
想象一下生活在这样一个地方：被臭氧刺鼻的气味和干热的空气所围绕。
And around 300 nights per year, the sky is lit up by nearly 10 hours of continuous lightning strikes that can be seen from hundreds of kilometers away.
一年之中，有三百个夜晚，天空中的闪电持续近十个小时，持续的闪电在百里之外都能看见。
In fact, during peak thunderstorm season, an average of 28 lightning strikes per minute hit the surface of Venezuela's Lake Maracaibo.
事实上，在雷暴高峰季节的委内瑞拉马拉开波湖面上，平均每分钟都闪过28道闪电。
This lake and its weird lightning have been a scientific mystery for decades.
几十年来，这片湖以及其诡异的闪电一直是科学之谜。
But nowadays, researchers think that a perfect storm of environmental factors is causing this everlasting light show.
但如今，研究人员们认为环境因素中的完美风暴是这种永恒闪电秀的起因。
The phenomenon is known as Catatumbo lightning, named after the river that flows into the southern part of Lake Maracaibo.
这种现象被称为卡塔通博闪电，以那条流过马拉开波湖南部的河流命名。
It's been recorded as early as 1598, when the poet Lope De Vega recounted how it helped thwart a surprise attack by the English privateer Sir Francis Drake.
早在1598年，马拉开波湖面上的闪电就被记录在案，当时诗人洛佩·德·维加叙述了其是如何帮忙挫败了英国私掠船长弗朗西斯·德雷克的突袭。
And on a molecular level, Catatumbo lightning is pretty normal.
在一个分子水平中，卡塔通博闪电相当普遍。
Lightning is a buildup and release of electric charge between one cloud and another, or between clouds and the surface of the Earth.
闪电是两片云或云和地球表面之间电荷的形成和释放。
When rain and icy dust particles collide during a thunderstorm, the clouds become polarized, with clusters of positively and negatively charged particles.
在雷暴天气中，当雨和冰尘粒相互碰撞，云层极化，云团带正电荷，微粒带负电荷。
Basically, we think that upward currents of air push some molecules skyward, while heavier particles drop down and collide with them, snagging electrons along the way.
主要来讲，我们认为空气的上升流推进一些分子向上，而较重的微粒下降并与它们相互冲突，钩绊住沿途的电子。
Since electrons are negatively charged, the bottom of the cloud gets more negatively charged, and the top gets more positively charged.
因为电子是带负电荷的，云层底部的负电荷越来越多，顶部则获得更多的正电荷。
And because like repels like... the negative bottoms of these clouds repel electrons on the ground, trees, or buildings below, leaving them with a more positive charge.
因为就像是抵制那样，这些云层底部的负电荷阻碍着地面、树木或建筑物的电子，使得它们携带的正电荷越来越多。
And all this charge separation keeps building up, creating a strong electric field.
所有这些电荷分离一直在增长并创造出一个牢固的电场。
Most of the time, this leads to negative lightning, where streams of negative charges from the bottom of the cloud branch toward the Earth.
多数情况下会产生负闪电—来自云层底部的负电荷流分支流向大地。
That negative stream is met by an opposite stream of positive charges flying skyward.
负电流和向上的正电荷相遇。
And when that happens, they exchange energy that manifests as a bright lightning strike.
此时，它们相互交换产生雷击的能量。
These strikes can heat the surrounding air to a ridiculously high temperature of nearly 30,000°C — around five times hotter than the surface of the Sun.
这些雷击将周围的空气加热至近30000摄氏度—大约是太阳表面温度的五倍。
Now, scientists have been baffled by the fact that Catatumbo lightning happens in the same place night after night, with an estimated 1.2 million strikes per year.
现在，卡塔通博闪电每晚发生在同一个地方，估计每年产生一千两百万次雷击，这一事实让科学家感到困惑。
One Venezuelan scientist who surveyed the area in the 1960s took a guess that
一名于1960年代就开始研究这片区域的委内瑞拉科学家猜测
uranium deposits in the nearby bedrock might act like a lightning magnet, drawing a disproportionate number of ground strikes. But that idea was a dead-end.
附近基岩中的铀矿或许起到闪电磁铁的作用，吸收不成比例的地面闪电。但是这个想法是个死胡同。
Another researcher thought that all this lightning was thanks to an excess of methane oozing up from nearby oil fields and swamps.
另一名研究员认为所有这种闪电的形成是由于附近油田和沼泽中所渗透出来的过量甲烷。
Specifically, he thought that methane's molecular geometry increased the separation of positive and negative charges inside the storm clouds,
明确来讲，他认为甲烷的分子结构增加了暴风云中正负电荷的分离，
which is an important step in making lightning.
这是形成闪电中的重要一步。
But neither of these hypotheses have been thoroughly supported by other scientists, so they fall short to a simpler explanation.
但两种假设被没有获得其他科学家的支持，因此它们没有更加简单的解释。
Nowadays, researchers mostly attribute Catatumbo lightning to the area's unique topography — the shape of the Earth's surface in a given area.
如今，研究人员主要将卡塔通博闪电归咎于这片地区的独特地势—特定区域的地表。
Many of the world's lightning hotspots are linked to geographical features like curved coastlines and nearby mountain ranges, plus winds that help cook up thunderstorms.
世界上许多闪电热点地区都和地理特征有关，像是弯曲的海岸线和附近的山脉，再加上帮助构造雷暴的风。
Lake Maracaibo is surrounded by the Andes mountains and other branching ranges to the south, west, and east,
马拉开波湖被安第斯山脉和其他东南西北分支环绕，
and they trap warm winds flowing over the lake from the Caribbean Sea.
它们吸收湖面上来自加勒比海的暖风。
When that warm, damp air collides with the colder mountain air, it rises quickly into the atmosphere, helping thunderclouds form in this stormy sweet spot.
当那种温暖潮湿的空气和山顶冷空气相碰撞，且会快速上升至大气层，帮助雷云形成这种猛烈的甜蜜点。
So Lake Maracaibo probably just has all the ingredients for a thunderstorm almost every day of the year — and that's the reason for all this lightning.
所以马拉开波湖或许正好拥有形成雷暴所有材料—这就是马拉开波湖闪电的原因。
Besides being a natural marvel, some scientists also argue that the Catatumbo lightning might play a critical role in generating ozone in the atmosphere.
除了是自然奇迹外，一些科学家还争论到卡塔通博闪电或许在大气臭氧产生重起到关键作用。
Ozone is a molecule made from three oxygen atoms, and helps contribute to a protective shield around the Earth in the upper atmosphere.
臭氧是由三个氧原子组成的分子，帮助促成地表上层大气周围的防护屏。
And the ozone layer absorbs potentially harmful, high-energy ultraviolet rays from the Sun before they reach the planet's surface and cause damage to living things.
来自太阳的有害高能紫外线会到达地球表面并对生物造成危害，但臭氧层能够在其到达地表前将其吸收。
When a lightning bolt rips down from the clouds and heats the nearby air, the energy release triggers chemical reactions that produce nitrogen oxides,
当一个闪电球从云层降落并加热附近空气的温度，能量释放触发化学反应并产生一氧化氮，
which can then react with other molecules to form ozone.
然后其会与其他分子产生反应形成臭氧。
So Lake Maracaibo's other claim to fame might be that it's the largest natural source of ozone in the world.
所以马拉开波湖其他的出名原因或许是因为其巨大的臭氧资源。
But most scientists say that this probably won't help with human-caused ozone depletion,
但是多数科学家表示这或许无法帮助解决人类导致的臭氧消耗问题，
because that lightning-generated ozone doesn't make it into the upper atmosphere. So Lake Maracaibo has become quite the tourist attraction.
因为闪电形成的臭氧无法进入上层大气。所以马拉开波湖变成了安静的旅游胜地。
But for scientists, it's a chance to dive deeper into why some parts of the world are a little more electric than others.
但是对科学家而言，这是深入研究为什么世界上的一些地方比其他地方更容易导电的机会。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow!
感谢收看本期科学秀！
If you want to learn about more weird places hidden on Earth, check out this compilation of 6 of our videos about them!
如果你想了解隐藏在世界中的更诡异的地方，请观看相关其他视频。
And don't forget to go to youtube.com/scishow and subscribe.
不要忘记登录youtube.com/scishow订阅我们的频道。
