新的研究表明，火星曾经温暖多雨

新的研究表明，火星曾经温暖多雨

Scientists have learned a lot about Mars in recent years, and based on observations from the fancy hardware NASA has sent to the Red Planet, we know that it once held far more water than we see today.

近几年来，科学家们对火星有了很多了解，根据美国国家航空航天局(NASA)发送给这颗红色星球的奇特仪器的观测结果，我们知道它曾经拥有的水比我们今天看到的要多得多。

But knowing there was lots of water (or at least abundant ice) on Mars long ago doesn’t necessarily tell us what the climate was like.

但知道很久以前火星上有很多水(或者至少是丰富的冰)，并不一定能告诉我们当时的气候是怎样的。

Without a time machine, we can’t know exactly what ancient Mars looked like, but researchers have come up with a pretty solid guess.

没有时间机器，我们无法确切地知道古代火星是什么样子的，但研究人员得出了一个相当可靠的猜测。

Using data from NASA’s CRISM spectrometer and the Curiosity rover, scientists have a good idea of what kinds of minerals are present in the Martian soil. And using various areas of Earth as analogs, they can observe the conditions that caused similar mineral deposition patterns on our planet and assume that similar climates were responsible for their formation on Mars as well.

利用美国宇航局CRISM光谱仪和好奇号探测器的数据，科学家们对火星土壤中存在的矿物质有了很好的了解。利用地球的不同区域作为类似物，他们可以观察到在我们的星球上造成类似矿物沉积模式的条件，并假设类似的气候也是它们在火星上形成的原因。

At the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference in Barcelona this week, Purdue University professor Briony Horgan announced the findings of a new research effort that draws comparisons between the climate of present-day Earth with that of ancient Mars.

在本周于巴塞罗那举行的戈德施密特地球化学会议上，普渡大学教授布里奥尼·霍根宣布了一项新的研究成果，该研究将当今地球的气候与古代火星的气候进行了比较。

“Our study of weathering in radically different climate conditions such as the Oregon Cascades, Hawaii, Iceland and other places on Earth, can show us how climate affects pattern of mineral deposition like we see on Mars,” Horgan said.

霍根说：“我们对俄勒冈瀑布、夏威夷、冰岛和地球上其他地方等极端不同气候条件下的风化作用的研究，可以向我们展示气候如何影响我们在火星上看到的矿物沉积模式。”

“This leads us to believe that on Mars 3 to 4 billion years ago, we had a general slow trend from warm to cold, with periods of thawing and freezing.”

“这让我们相信，在30亿到40亿年前的火星上，我们经历了一个从温暖到寒冷的缓慢过程，有解冻和冻结的时期。”

The study dives deep into the nuances of various mineral deposits such as silica, which the scientists believe hints at melting ice. This suggests that the planet had some ups and downs with regard to temperature, with warm periods characterized by occasional rains and then colder periods where everything was frozen.

这项研究深入研究了各种矿藏的细微差别，比如科学家们认为有迹象表明冰层正在融化的二氧化硅。这表明，地球在温度方面有一些起伏，温暖的时期以偶尔下雨为特征，然后是寒冷的时期，所有的东西都被冻结了。

Mars today is frigid compared to Earth, and that’s largely owed to the fact that the planet’s atmosphere has been almost entirely stripped away.

今天的火星与地球相比是寒冷的，这很大程度上是由于这个星球的大气层几乎完全被剥夺了。

Billions of years ago, the planet is thought to have had a much more robust atmosphere that would have aided in it retaining heat.

数十亿年前，人们认为这颗行星的大气层要活跃得多，有助于它保持热量。

A temperate climate with rain and flowing water certainly sounds like a recipe for life as we know it, but we may have to wait and see what the Mars 2020 rover has to say about that once it arrives in early 2021.

气候温和，雨水充足，水流湍急，这听起来就像我们所知道的生命之道，但我们可能要等一等，看看2020年火星探测器2021年初抵达火星后会说些什么。