VOA慢速英语听力：美国国家航空航天局漫游者在火星上发现有机物质的新证据 NASA Rover Finds New Evidence of Organic Matter on Mars

VOA慢速英语听力：美国国家航空航天局漫游者在火星上发现有机物质的新证据 NASA Rover Finds New Evidence of Organic Matter on Mars.

Scientists say they have found new evidence of organic matter on Mars that could be linked to past life on the planet.

The Perseverance explorer, which is operated by the American space agency NASA, discovered the organic materials. The explorer, or rover, has been collecting data on Mars since landing on the Red Planet in February 2021.

The goal, or mission, of Perseverance is to collect Martian soil and rock material as part of a search for signs of ancient life. Scientists on Earth using the equipment on the rover examine this material as closely as possible. The collected soil and rocks are to be picked up in future missions and returned to Earth for examination.

Researchers said the latest findings suggest the presence on the Martian surface of the same kinds of carbon “signals” that are linked to living organisms on Earth. The presence of carbon may suggest that biological life once existed on Mars. But the carbon material could also be related to nonbiological processes.

In the past, data from two other NASA explorers – the Phoenix lander and the Curiosity rover – found evidence of organic carbon on the surface of Mars. But both of those discoveries were made with gas-based methods used for examining organic matter. The latest findings were made through a different method.

This time, the research team used an instrument attached to Perseverance’s robotic arm known as SHERLOC. It uses cameras, spectrometers and a laser to search for organic matter and minerals, NASA said. The instrument centers on materials that might have been changed by watery environments and could provide biological evidence of past life.

One of the leaders of the latest research was Amy Williams, an astrobiologist and assistant professor at the University of Florida. She was one of the writers of a study that describes the latest findings in the publication Nature. The study suggests the new research method provided evidence “of a more intricate organic geochemical cycle on Mars than previously understood.”

Williams works on the Perseverance mission team. She said in a statement that the SHERLOC instrument appears to have observed several kinds of organic carbon matter. She added that the discovery “has implications for understanding the carbon cycle on Mars,” as well as the possibility that the planet once supported life.

Williams said SHERLOC was very effective at mapping the positions of organic molecules and minerals on rock surfaces around an area of Mars called Jezero Crater.

Ashley Murphy was another writer of the study. She is a research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona. Murphy said the SHERLOC instrument produces “the spatial resolution needed to observe important mineral-organic relationships” to study possible biological signals.

“The big takeaway here is, with SHERLOC's grain-by-grain resolution we can finally observe variation in organic preservation within the rocks on Mars,” Murphy said. She added, “This is also one of the first reports of (possible) organics in Jezero Crater.”

Scientists believe Jezero Crater contains the remains of an ancient river system. NASA considers the area a good place to look for possible signs of past life. Scientists believe if life ever existed on Mars, it would have been present 3 to 4 billion years ago, when water flowed freely on the planet.

Williams suggested the latest findings mark important progress in the search for signs of ancient life forms on Mars. “We are just now scratching the surface of the organic carbon story on Mars, and it is an exciting time for planetary science.”

I’m Bryan Lynn.

Words in This Story

spectrometer – n. an instrument that measures levels of chemical elements and gases in the Martian atmosphere

intricate –adj. having fine detail or made of many parts

imply – v. to suggest or show something, without saying it directly

spatial – adj. relating to the position, area and size for things

resolution – n. a measure of the sharpness of an image or the fineness a device operates at

takeaway –n. a fact or idea that comes from a discussion or meeting

variation – n. a difference in amount or quality

scratch the surface – idiom. to deal with only a small part of a problem or subject

参考译文：

科学家们表示，他们已经在火星上发现了与该行星过去生命可能有关的有机物的新证据。

由美国国家航空航天局（NASA）运营的“毅力号”探测器发现了这些有机物质。这个探测器，也被称为漫游车，自2021年2月登陆火星以来一直在该红色星球上收集数据。

“毅力号”的目标是作为寻找古代生命迹象的一部分，收集火星土壤和岩石材料。地球上的科学家们利用漫游车上的设备尽可能仔细地检查这些材料。收集到的土壤和岩石样本将在未来的任务中被带回地球进行检验。

研究人员表示，最新的发现表明火星表面存在与地球上的生物有关的相同类型的碳“信号”。碳的存在可能暗示火星上曾经存在生物生命。但是这些碳物质也可能与非生物过程有关。

在过去，来自另外两个NASA探测器——凤凰号着陆器和好奇号漫游车的数据显示火星表面存在有机碳。但是这两个发现都是通过用于检测有机物质的基于气体的方法得出的。而最新的发现则采用了不同的方法。

这一次，研究团队使用了连接在“毅力号”机械臂上的一个叫做SHERLOC的仪器。它使用摄像机、光谱仪和激光器来搜索有机物质和矿物质。NASA表示，这个仪器主要关注那些可能在水环境中发生变化并提供过去生命的生物学证据的材料。

最新研究的负责人之一是艾米·威廉姆斯（Amy Williams），她是佛罗里达大学的天体生物学家和助理教授之一。她是一项在《自然》杂志上描述了最新发现的研究的作者之一。该研究表明，新的研究方法提供了关于火星上更为复杂的有机地球化学循环的证据，这比之前的理解要深入。

威廉姆斯是“毅力号”任务团队的成员之一。她在一份声明中表示，SHERLOC仪器似乎观察到了几种有机碳物质。她补充说，这一发现“对于理解火星上的碳循环以及该行星曾经是否支持生命的可能性具有重要意义”。

威廉姆斯还表示，SHERLOC在绘制火星上被称为Jezero陨石坑周围岩石表面的有机分子和矿物质的位置方面非常有效。

另一位研究人员阿什利·墨菲（Ashley Murphy）是这项研究的作者之一，她是亚利桑那州行星科学研究所的研究科学家。墨菲表示，SHERLOC仪器提供了“观察重要的矿物质-有机物质关系所需的空间分辨率”，以研究可能的生物信号。

墨菲说：“这里的重点是，借助SHERLOC的逐粒分辨率，我们终于能够观察到火星岩石中有机物保存的变化。”她补充说：“这也是关于Jezero陨石坑可能存在（可能）有机物的首次报告之一。”

科学家们相信Jezero陨石坑中保存着一个古老的河流系统的遗迹。NASA认为该地区是寻找过去生命迹象的好地方。科学家们相信，如果火星上曾经存在生命，那应该是在30至40亿年前，当时水在该行星上自由流动。

威廉姆斯认为，最新的发现标志着在火星上寻找古代生命形式的迹象方面取得了重要进展。她说：“我们现在只是在揭开火星有机碳故事的表面，这对于行星科学来说是令人兴奋的时刻。”

我是布赖恩·林恩（Bryan Lynn）。