科学家发现使火星宜居的新方法

科学家发现使火星宜居的新方法

As far as anyone knows, Mars is totally devoid of life. We don’t know if that was always the case, but we know that modern-day Mars is a rather hostile place to be thanks to frigid temperatures and deadly radiation.

大家都知道，火星上完全没有生命。我们不知道是不是一直是这样，但由于寒冷的温度和致命的辐射，现代火星是一个相当危险的地方。

But when humans eventually arrive on the Red Planet, we might be able to change that, and a new study offers a hint as to how that could happen.

但当人类最终到达这颗红色星球时，我们或许能够改变这一状况，一项新的研究为这一可能提供了线索。

In a new paper published in Nature Astronomy, researchers explain how a thin layer of aerogel — a highly porous, virtually weightless material — could make huge regions of Mars more habitable.

在《自然天文学》杂志上发表的一篇新论文中，研究人员解释了一层薄薄的气凝胶——一种高度多孔、几乎没有重量的材料——是如何使火星的大片区域适于居住的。

Scientists have imagined what it would take to terraform Mars in the past, and the general consensus is that raising the surface temperature to above the freezing point of water needs to be the first major step.

过去，科学家们曾经设想过，将火星变成地球需要哪些条件，普遍的共识是，把火星地表温度提高到水的冰点以上，这是第一步。

Once there’s flowing water on Mars, we could begin to truly modify the environment and perhaps even make it livable in the future, but it’s easier said than done.

一旦火星上有了流动的水，我们就可以开始真正地改变环境，甚至可能在未来使其适宜居住，但说起来容易做起来难。

The researchers in the latest study considered how aerogel might play a role. They designed an experiment to simulate how sunlight passing through an aerogel “shield” could change the conditions of the surface below, discovering that using a layer of silica aerogel just 2 to 3 centimeters thick allowed enough light to pass through for plants to use for photosynthesis while also blocking harmful UV radiation.

在最新的研究中，研究人员考虑了气凝胶可能发挥的作用。他们设计了一个实验，来模拟阳光穿过气凝胶“屏蔽层”改变表面条件的过程,他们发现使用一层二氧化硅气凝胶——只需要2到3厘米厚——这样既能保证有足够的光用于植物光合作用,同时还能阻止有害的紫外线辐射。

On Earth, we’re concerned with the greenhouse effect because it pushes the temperature of our planet’s surface to dangerous highs.

在地球上，我们担心温室效应，因为它把地球表面的温度推到危险的高点。

On Mars, a layer of aerogel could serve the same purpose. Layers of the incredibly lightweight material could raise the temperature over large regions, allowing water to flow and plant life to thrive.

在火星上，一层气凝胶也可以起到同样的作用。这种难以置信的轻质材料可以提高大面积地区的温度，使水得以流动，植物得以茁壮成长。

At this point, of course, this is all very much theoretical. Aerogel is real and, it seems, could be used to solve a major problem for future settlers of Mars, but producing it on the Red Planet (or bringing it all the way from Earth) is barely worth dreaming about at this point.

当然，这些都只是建立在理论基础上的。虽然气凝胶真实存在，它似乎可以用来解决未来火星宜居的一个主要问题，但要在火星上生产气凝胶(或从地球上送过去)，这一点几乎想都不用想。