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These patterns have grown as dark energy has caused the universe to expand.
随着暗能量导致宇宙膨胀，这些模式也不断增强。
Analysing the most distant imprints in effect gives cosmologists a way of looking back in time, allowing them to chart the evolution of dark energy over the course of billions of years.
分析最遥远的印记实际上为宇宙学家提供了一种回顾过去的方法，使他们能够绘制出数十亿年来暗能量的演变。
DESI's results suggest not only that dark energy's density has changed over time.
DESI的结果不仅表明暗能量的密度随时间而变化。
According to Dr Huterer, what happened is even stranger than that: the density increased until around 4 billion years ago and then it began decreasing. Nobody can explain why.
根据胡特尔博士的说法，发生的事情甚至比这更奇怪：密度一直增加到大约40亿年前，然后开始下降。没有人能解释原因。
If the DESI team's results are right, it would mean a complete re-evaluation of what dark energy could be.
如果DESI团队的结果是正确的，那就意味着需要对暗能量完全重新评估。
"The moment [dark] energy changes in time, it is no longer vacuum energy," says Bhuvnesh Jain, a cosmologist at the University of Pennsylvania.
宾夕法尼亚大学的宇宙学家Bhuvnesh Jain说：“一旦[暗]能量随时间变化，它就不再是真空能量了。”
Alternative proposals already exist, centring on a dark-energy field called quintessence, which pervades all space and can change with time.
已经存在替代方案，即以精质暗能量场为中心，它遍布所有空间并可以随时间而变化。
However, Dr Jain says, the DESI results as they stand now indicate something more complex than the simplest quintessence models.
然而，Jain博士表示，DESI目前的结果表明，宇宙学存在比最简单的精质模型更复杂的东西。
It would also mean that the standard model of cosmology, in its current form, is toast.
这也意味着，目前形式的宇宙学标准模型已经完蛋了。
It is no wonder, then, that DESI's results are causing consternation. But these are not the only vexing cracks in the model.
因此，DESI的结果引起人们的恐慌也就不足为奇了。但这些并不是该模型中唯一令人恼火的漏洞。
For example, some astronomers have observed that matter in the nearby universe clumps together less than the standard model says it ought to and that the early universe does not seem to have been as uniform a place as the standard model's predictions say it should have been.
例如，一些天文学家观测到，附近宇宙中的物质聚集的程度低于标准模型所说的程度，早期宇宙似乎并不像标准模型预测的那样均匀。
What's more, over the past decade different teams have measured differing values for the Hubble constant, the rate at which the universe is currently expanding
此外，在过去十年中，不同的团队测量了不同的哈勃常数值，即宇宙当前膨胀的速度
(named after Edwin Hubble, an American astronomer, who worked out that galaxies were moving away from Earth at a velocity proportional to their distance from it).
（哈勃常数值以美国天文学家爱德文·哈勃的名字命名，他发现星系的退行速度与它们和地球的距离成正比）。
This would imply that cosmologists do not really understand the universe's historical expansion—or, by extension, how dark energy has behaved in that time.
这意味着宇宙学家并不真正了解宇宙的历史膨胀，或者说并不了解暗能量在那段时间里的行为。
Recent observations from the James Webb Space Telescope, however, collected by Wendy Freedman of the University of Chicago and her team, seem to suggest these values can be reconciled, implying nothing unexpected in dark energy's behaviour.
然而，芝加哥大学的温迪·弗里德曼及其团队收集的詹姆斯·韦伯太空望远镜的最新观测结果似乎表明，这些值是可以调和的，这意味着暗能量的行为并没有什么意外。
The results have yet to be published in a scientific journal, though, so not all sides in the debate are convinced.
不过，研究结果尚未发表在科学期刊上，因此并非所有争论方都对此深信不疑。
All these problems have led some cosmologists to advocate for radical solutions—adopting more flexible notions of dark energy, for example, or working on an alternative to the standard model of cosmology.
所有这些问题都促使一些宇宙学家提倡激进的解决方案，例如采用更灵活的暗能量概念，或研究标准宇宙学模型的替代方案。
Some even go so far as to suggest that Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, on which the model is based, may have reached its limits.
有些人甚至认为，该模型所基于的爱因斯坦广义相对论可能已经达到了极限。
"We know that sooner or later, it will fail. It happened to Newton, it will happen to Einstein," says Andreu Font-Ribera, a cosmologist at the Institute of High Energy Physics in Barcelona and another member of the DESI team.
“我们知道，它迟早会失败。它发生在牛顿身上，也会发生在爱因斯坦身上，”巴塞罗那高能物理研究所的宇宙学家、DESI团队的另一名成员Andreu Font-Ribera说道。
That would not mean that Einstein was wrong but only—small consolation though it may be—incompletely right.
这并不意味着爱因斯坦错了，而只是（尽管这可能是一个小小的安慰）不完全正确。
Just as Isaac Newton's law of universal gravitation was shown to be an approximation of general relativity under the right conditions (ie, across the relatively small distances and low gravitational fields on and around Earth),
正如艾萨克·牛顿的万有引力定律在适当的条件下被证明是广义相对论的近似值（即在相对较小的距离和地球及其周围低重力场中），
general relativity may also turn out to be the limiting case of some deeper, as-yet-undiscovered theory.
广义相对论也可能成为某些更深层次的、尚未发现的理论的极限情况。
For now, all talk of replacing the standard model of cosmology, let alone general relativity, is motivated by hints and guesswork.
目前，所有关于取代宇宙学标准模型的讨论，更不用说广义相对论了，都是由暗示和猜测推动的。
But as the next generation of telescopes and observatories begins to generate data, a new, more complete picture of dark energy's role in the universe may emerge.
但随着下一代望远镜和天文台开始生成数据，可能会出现一幅描绘暗能量在宇宙中的作用的新的、更完整的图景。
The Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile, for example, will also chart the universe's expansion over time and map the universe's evolution over the past several billion years.
例如，智利的薇拉·鲁宾天文台也将绘制宇宙随时间膨胀的图表，并绘制过去几十亿年宇宙的演变图。
That will start watching the heavens next year. The European Space Agency's Euclid, a space telescope, is already in orbit and building its own map of galaxies.
它将于明年开始观测天空。欧洲航天局的欧几里得太空望远镜已经进入轨道，并正在绘制自己的星系图。
It is likewise aiming to track dark energy through measurements of the universe's expansion.
它同样旨在通过测量宇宙的膨胀来追踪暗能量。
"You feel like the clues are almost there," says Dr Riess. "I keep waiting for a really smart person to put these puzzle pieces together."
“你觉得就快获得线索了，”利斯博士说。“我一直在等待一个真正聪明的人把这些拼图碎片拼凑起来。”
