火星生命说疑云密布

Of all the planets in the solar system, Mars has seasons most similar to those here on earth. The theory that water might have once covered large parts of the red planet 1)gave rise to a belief that life might have existed there, but NASA注’s findings now suggest thatthe planet might be more forbidding than we ever thought.

Expert A: Mars is an active world very closely related to the earth. It has an atmosphere. It has clouds. It has morning 2)mist. It has…it has a 3)geology. It has

evidence of past water, past 4)volcanism. Therefore, Mars is a really true, exciting, important world to explore.

The US craft Opportunity is one of two 5)roving vehicles currently on the planet. It was launched in 2004, and has spent more than 1,400 days analyzing

rock samples. Analyses of its finding showed that

water on the planet would have been incredibly salty, so much so that life would have struggled to get a 6)foothold.

Coming in the same week that the UK government announced plans to invest in Man’s Space

Missions. NASA’s discovery

will inevitably 7)fuel

8)skeptics, who consider space exploration to be a waste of money.

Expert B: Proving that life can exist in extreme

environments, which is one of the big breakthroughs in biology in the last 20 years, is an important scientific piece of knowledge. It’s also important from the point of view of how it relates to people’s view of the world whether or not life can actually form other places than our own.

The search for life on Mars will go on, because the 9)frank reality is that should any trace be found, the financial rewards for the countries involved would be massive. No surprise then that there are plenty of

missions 10)in the pipeline as the next generation of space exploration prepares to lift off.

在太阳系的所有行星中，火星拥有和地球最为相似的季节特征。有理论称，这个红色星球上或许曾有大片区域被水覆盖；这一理论使人们开始相信火星上可能存在生命体。不过，美国国家航空航天局（NASA）最近的发现表明，这个星球的形势也许比我们想象的更险峻。

专家甲：火星是一个和地球关系紧密的活跃天体。它有着火星大气，有云层，有晨霭；它有着（各种）地质地貌，还有水和火山作用存在过的痕迹。所以火星是一个非常真实、令人激动、意义重大的探索

领域。

美国“机遇”号火星车是现在在这个星球上行走的两辆漫游车之一。2004年发射后，它在火星分析岩石样本已超过1400天。对其发现物进行分析后发现，过去火星上的水盐度极有可能非常高，高到生命体必须艰难挣扎才能生存的地步。

同一周，英国政府宣布投资载人火星登陆计划。NASA的发现必然会激起质疑的声音，质疑太空探索浪费财力。

专家乙：在极端恶劣的环境下生命仍然可以存在得到了证实，这一论断是近20年来生物学上的重大突破之一，也是一项重要的科学知识。另外，它与人类对世界的看法的关联这个角度来看――也就是生命是否可以在我们的地球之外的其它地方产生和形成，也是至关重要的。

人们对火星生命的研究会继续下去，因为现实显而易见――如果我们发现了任何线索，这会为参与的国家带来巨额经济收益。所以，难怪随着下一阶段太空探索的起步，如此多的火星计划已经处于酝酿之中。