Maven: Meaning of _remote.repositories file

Question

I try to figure it out what the .repositories files are for.

I've just downloaded the dsol/dsol-xml/1.6.9 and in this folder there is a '_remote.repositories' file. Its content is:

#NOTE: This is an Aether internal implementation file, its format can be changed without prior notice.
#Tue Sep 15 18:16:30 CEST 2015
dsol-xml-1.6.9.jar>simulation=
dsol-xml-1.6.9.pom>simulation=

What does this means?!

Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

Gist from the original answer

with Maven 3.0.x, when an artifact is downloaded from a repository, maven leaves a _maven.repositories file to record where the file was resolved from.