一项新的研究给火星的可居住性带来了巨大的打击

一项新的研究给火星的可居住性带来了巨大的打击

Of all the planets in our solar system, Mars is thought to be our best chance at finding life outside of Earth. There’s obviously not much happening on the surface, but pockets of ice and even water exist in some areas of the planet, and there’s a tiny, almost impossibly slim chance that something very tiny might be living there.

在我们太阳系的所有行星中，火星被认为是我们在地球之外寻找生命的最佳机会。表面上显然没有发生太多的变化，但是在这个星球的某些区域存在着冰甚至水，而且非常微小的东西在那里生活的可能性很小，几乎是不可能的。

Or, at least that’s what some scientists were hoping for, but a new study published by researchers from several institutions suggests that even that narrow possibility is probably also nonexistent.

或者，至少这是一些科学家所希望的，但来自几个机构的研究人员发表的一项新研究表明，即使是这种微小的可能性也可能不存在。

We think we have a pretty good idea of what ingredients are required for life to exist. One of the big ones is water, and Mars has it. Much of it is locked away in ice, but Mars also has salt, and the combination of water and salt dramatically lowers its freezing point, meaning that puddles of ultra-salty brine could still exist on the surface.

我们认为我们很清楚生命存在所需的成分。其中一个大的是水，火星有水。它的大部分被锁在冰里，但火星上也有盐，水和盐的结合大大降低了它的冰点，这意味着表面上仍可能存在超咸水坑。

To determine the likelihood that such puddles could support life, the researchers built an atmospheric model based on what we already know about the planet. Then using the simulated climate, they tested whether briny puddles could persist for long periods of time. Unfortunately, the data points in the opposite direction of life.

为了确定这些水坑能够维持生命的可能性，研究人员根据我们对地球的了解建立了一个大气模型。然后利用模拟的气候，他们测试了盐水坑是否能长期存在。不幸的是，这些数据指向了生命的相反方向。

“Our team looked at specific regions on Mars to understand if they could be habitable,” Dr. Alejandro Soto, co-author of the study, said in a statement.

“我们的团队研究了火星上的特定区域以了解它们是否适合居住，”该研究的合著者亚历杭德罗·索托博士在一份声明中说。

“We used Martian climate information from both atmospheric models and spacecraft measurements. We developed a model to predict where, when and for how long brines are stable on the surface and shallow subsurface of Mars.”

“我们使用了来自大气模型和航天器测量的火星气候信息。我们开发了一个模型来预测火星表面和浅层地下的盐水稳定的时间、地点和持续时间。”

The results showed that even under the most favorable conditions, puddles of super-salty water would only be stable on the planet’s surface during certain times of the year.

结果表明，即使在最有利的条件下，超咸水坑也只会在一年中的某些时候稳定地存在于地球表面。

“Even extreme life on Earth has its limits, and we found that brine formation from some salts can lead to liquid water over 40% of the Martian surface but only seasonally, during 2% of the Martian year,” Soto says.

索托说：“即使是地球上的极端生命也有其局限性，我们发现，一些盐类形成的盐水可以导致火星表面40%以上的液态水，但这只是季节性的，即在火星一年的2%时间里。”

So yeah, that’s a bit of a bummer. The good news is that NASA’s Perseverance rover will soon be headed to Mars, and it’ll be gathering samples of the surface and conducting experiments that could reveal whether life has ever existed on the planet.

所以，是的，这有点让人失望。好消息是，美国宇航局的“毅力”号探测器不久将前往火星，它将收集火星表面的样本，并进行实验，以揭示火星上是否曾经存在生命。