Horizon - Life On Mars 火星生命 - 5

William Boynton is professor of planetary sciences at the University of Arizona. And he's dedicated¹ his life to looking for water on Mars.

The link between life and water is very strong. Even here in the desert, there's life all around us. Now when looking for life on Mars, we use our basis of knowledge on Earth. And on Earth we know life requires water. So on Mars, we're gonna be looking for the places where we can find water.

Just like the desert, Mars may look dry but there are signs of water there. It's been known for almost a century that there are icecaps at the Martian poles.

When we look up at Mars, we see a dry, dusty planet. It doesn't look like a place for life. But there's tiny amounts of water in the atmosphere. And we know there are ice concentrations in the poles. So we're actually very optimistic that because there is at least, a speck² of water on Mars, there might be a speck of life.

However, while the poles contain water ice, temperatures there can reach a staggering minus 150 degrees centigrade which meant these were not good places to search for life.

The conditions there are way too extreme. It's really just too cold. We really need liquid water for life. What we want to find on Mars is some place where we can find water in the more temperate³ regions. What we ultimately need to find is liquid water.

But the first indications were that if life needed liquid water, then Mars was out of luck. Conditions all over the planet seemed too cold, there appeared to be no prospect⁴ of water anywhere. These photographs changed everything. Taken by the Viking Space Probe in 1976, they showed what looked like dried-up river valleys.

You can see one here. You can see there's a, a valley through here, you can see it branches, the tributaries⁵. Here's one branch going off here with tributaries. So this looks very much like, er, a terrestrial river system.

If these were dried-up riverbeds, it meant that Mars must once have had the perfect conditions for life.


ice concentration: the ratio expressed in tenths describing the area of the water surface covered by ice as a fraction of the whole area

1 dedicated   

adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的

参考例句：

• He dedicated his life to the cause of education.他献身于教育事业。
• His whole energies are dedicated to improve the design.他的全部精力都放在改进这项设计上了。

2 speck   

n.微粒，小污点，小斑点

参考例句：

• I have not a speck of interest in it.我对它没有任何兴趣。
• The sky is clear and bright without a speck of cloud.天空晴朗，一星星云彩也没有。

3 temperate   

adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的

参考例句：

• Asia extends across the frigid,temperate and tropical zones.亚洲地跨寒、温、热三带。
• Great Britain has a temperate climate.英国气候温和。

4 prospect   

n.前景，前途；景色，视野

参考例句：

• This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。

5 tributaries   

n. 支流

参考例句：

• In such areas small tributaries or gullies will not show. 在这些地区，小的支流和冲沟显示不出来。
• These tributaries are subsequent streams which erode strike valley. 这些支流系即为蚀出走向谷的次生河。