MartianGlaciersEqualMeter-ThickPlanetaryIceShell.docVIP

Martian Glaciers Equal Meter-Thick Planetary Ice Shell 火星冰川——一米厚的火星冰外壳 Long before the space age, humans looking at Mars thought they saw evidence for the presence of water, in the form of giant canals built by some very advanced, very thirsty civilization. Those 19th-century notions proved to be the products of poor telescopes and wishful thinking—the canals were an optical illusion. But 20th- and 21st-century observers have definitely found water on Mars. 早在太空时代以前，人类仰望火星感觉看到了——某种非常先进又亟需水源的文明。最终事实证明人类这些“19世纪的”见解只是低端望眼镜和人类臆想的结果——所谓的运河不过是一种视觉错觉。但在20世纪和21世纪观察家们的确在火星上发现了水。 Telescopes spied water in ice caps at the Red Planet’s poles, as well as signs of an ancient ocean covering the northern hemisphere. The Viking landers saw water frost on rocks, the Phoenix lander found water ice buried centimeters beneath the soil, and the Curiosity rover has rolled through an ancient riverbed. 科学家利用望远镜在火星两极的冰帽中发现了水，以及一个覆盖了北半球的古代海洋。“海盗号”火星探测器发现了在岩石上结成冰的水，“凤凰号”登陆器发现了埋在地下几厘米水冰，“好奇号”探测车还开过了一个古老的河床。 Most mysteriously, orbiters overhead have glimpsed the outlines of what seem to be belts of buried glaciers girdling the globe at high latitudes. Some researchers thought the dust-covered glaciers might be mostly made of mud, or of carbon dioxide ice. But a new study from researchers at the University of Copenhagen reinforces the consensus view that the glaciers are made of water ice—and a lot of it. The findings are in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. 最神秘的是：高空卫星观测到了环绕火星高伟地区的地下冰川的轮廓。一些研究人员认为,布满灰尘的冰川可能主要是由泥或干冰构成。但哥本哈根大学研究人员的一项新研究巩固了“冰川是由很多水冻冰块构成”的共识。该研究结果发表于《地球物理研究快报》杂志。 The researchers paired a decade’s worth of radar measurements with models of how glacial ice flows on Earth to calculate the approximate thickness and size of all the Martian glaciers. 研究人员利用历经十年雷达探测所得的参数与地球上流动冰的冰流模型进行匹配，以计算火星冰川的大致厚度和尺寸。 Their conclusions? The glaciers contain nearly 150 billion cubic meters of water ice—enough ice to cover Mars a meter deep, and more than enough to someday sustain human colonists. T