好奇號火星車在火星表面看到奇怪的紋路

The discovery of strange, mineral veins on Mars has planetary scientists buzzing. And no wonder: the find may shed new light on the Red Planet's watery past and could even help reveal whether Mars was once habitable.

火星上奇異紋路的發現讓行星科學家們像蜜蜂一樣嗡嗡個不停。這些發現能幫助瞭解火星的有水的歲月，並且能幫助回答火星是否曾經適合居住這個問題。

NASA's Curiosity rover spotted the prominent veins in "Garden City." That's the name scientists use for a geologically rich site on towering Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons), a mountain that rises almost 3.5 miles off the Martian surface.

好奇號火星車是在"花園城市"發現到這些明顯的紋路。"花園城市"是指在夏普山上的一個地理現象豐富的地方。夏普山高3.5英里。

A composite image of the veins was made by combining 28 separate photos taken on March 18, 2015 by the right-eye camera of the rover's Mastcam instrument.

火星號在2015年3月18號拍下了關於紋路的28張不同的照片，它們被組合成了一張照片（即下圖）。

冰淇淋三明治是下面這樣的

再來一張好奇號的照片

"Some of them look like ice-cream sandwiches: dark on both edges and white in the middle," Linda Kah, a member of the Curiosity science team at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, said in a written statement.

好奇號火星車的科學小組成員琳達在一份書面聲明中說道："有些紋路像冰淇淋三明治：兩邊黑中間白。"

according to Kah and her colleagues, the veins -- which jut out 2.5 inches above a patch of eroded bedrock -- likely formed when fluids moved through cracked rock and deposited minerals. The light veins are made of calcium sulfate, which has been found by the rover in other nearby locations, according to the researchers.

琳達和她的同事說，這些紋路位於一塊腐蝕的岩牀上，高爲2.5英寸。這些紋路可能是在液體流經碎巖和沉積礦物質時候形成的。據研究員稱，那些明亮的紋路是有硫酸鈣組成的，它們在附近的地方也有被發現。

The dark veins? They're a bit of a mystery.

暗紋路？它們有點神祕。

"There's something very different of these veins than what we have seen prior [sic]," Kah told the Los Angeles Times.

琳達說："暗紋路和我們之前看到的亮紋路大爲不同。"

The researchers hope further analysis will yield new clues about the chemical make-up of the fluids that deposited the veins, as well as the changing environmental conditions on ancient Mars. So far, they believe both types of veins formed after the mud in a lake at Mount Sharp's base dried up and hardened, reported, and the dark veins were deposited prior to the light ones.

研究員們希望對紋路的分析能展露更多的關於形成紋路液體的成分的線索，同時也希望得到遠古火星環境變化的線索。目前爲止，研究員們認爲這兩種紋路都是在夏普山的湖裏的泥土變幹變硬後形成的；暗紋路比亮紋路先形成。

The finding adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that ancient Mars had key ingredients for life. Just last week, Curiosity discovered a biologically useful form of nitrogen in samples of sand and mudstone.

這些紋路的發現加大了火星有生命所需關鍵物質的猜測。就在上個星期，好奇號在沙和泥岩的樣本中發現了氮的有用於生命形成的一種存在形式。

The rover landed on Mars on August 6, 2012 and reached the base of Mount Sharp on September 11, 2014.

好奇號火星車在2012年8月6日登陸火星，在2014年9月11日到達夏普山腳下。