火星地底下發現足夠微生物存活的氧氣

Salty water just below the surface of Mars could hold enough oxygen to support the kind of microbial life that emerged and flourished on Earth billions of years ago, researchers reported last Monday.

研究人員上週一報告稱，火星地表下的鹽水可能蘊含着能夠維持微生物生命的充足氧氣，而這些微生物曾在十億年前在地球上繁衍生存。

In some locations, the amount of oxygen available could even keep alive a primitive, multicellular animal such as a sponge, they reported in the journal Nature Geosciences.

據研究人員發表在《自然地球科學》雜誌上的報告，在某些地方，氧氣含量甚至高達可維持原始多細胞的生物的生命的水平，如海綿動物。

"We discovered that brines -- water with high concentrations of salt-- on Mars can contain enough oxygen for microbes to breathe," said lead author Vlada Stamenkovic, a theoretical physicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

加州噴氣推進實驗室的理論物理學家弗拉達·斯塔門科維奇表示：“我們發現，火星上的滷水（高濃度鹽水）中含有夠微生物呼吸的氧氣。”

"This fully revolutionizes our understanding of the potential for life on Mars, today and in the past."

“此發現完全改變了我們對火星可能存在生命的認知，無論是以前的還是現在的認知。”

Up to now, it had been assumed that the trace amounts of oxygen on the Red Planet were insufficient to sustain even microbial life.

時至今日，大家一直都認爲，火星上稀薄氧氣無法維持微生物的生命。

"We never thought that oxygen could play a role for life on Mars due to its rarity in the atmosphere, about 0.14 percent," Stamenkovic said.

斯塔門科維奇表示，“因火星大氣中氧氣含量約爲0.14%，十分稀薄，所以我們未曾想過這點氧氣可以讓生物存活。”

By comparison, the life-giving gas makes up 21 percent of the air we breathe.

相比之下，地球大氣中氧氣含量爲21%。