正文翻译

提问：如果我们在火星上找到生命，会是什么样的形式？

评论翻译

Spandan Mallick

Thank you Clinton Fernandes for the A2A!

谢克林顿·费尔南德斯（Clinton Fernandes）邀

Often, while searching for life on other planets, we forget that the life we intend to find might not be green slender moving beings with big slimy brains - yes, they need not be intelligent. As much as a small organism (rather, a micro-organism) is an immense find for life on other planets.

通常，在寻找其他行星上的生命时，我们会忘记我们想要寻找的生命可能不是绿色细长身子大脑袋的动人生物-是的，它们不需要聪明。只要在其它行星上发现一个小的有机体（即，微生物）就是一个巨大的发现。

For example, elongated micro-structures have been found on a Martian meteorite named ALH84001 that had struck the pole of Earth and has been predicted to have come from - MARS, almost 13,000 years ago! Here is a picture of those elongated structures:

例如，在一个名为ALH84001的火星陨石上发现了细长的微结构，该陨石撞击了地球的极点，而且据预测来自近13,000年前的火星！这是这些细长结构的图片：

(IMAGE SOURCE: Britannica Encyclopedia)

（图片来源：大不列颠百科全书）

These have been thought by many to be signs of earlier life on Mars. However, there is no majority consensus amongst working researchers on the topic. The meteorite was recovered from the Allan Hills ice field of Antarctica in 1984.

许多人认为这些是火星早期生命的迹象。但是，这个课题的研究人员之间没有达成多数共识。陨石是在1984年从南极的艾伦山冰原中回收的。

So, if we do find life on Mars, it is less probable that one would find beings like these:

因此，如果我们确实在火星上找到了生命，那么人们不太可能会找到这样的生物：

IMAGE SOURCE: Space Magazine)

（图片来源：《太空》杂志）

And more probable, they’ll be like this:

他们更有可能像这样：

(IMAGE SOURCE: Live Science Daily)

（图片来源：《每日生命科学》）

The organism showed above is called a tardigrade which is possibly the toughest organism to ever tread Earth - it can literally survive years without oxygen, or in extreme radiation or even in fire! They simple don’t die! A European team of researchers sent a group of living tardigrades to orbit the earth on the outside of a FOTON-M3 rocket for 10 days in 2007. They survived perfectly! So, it’s more probable life on Mars will be microscopic.

上面显示的生物为水熊，它可能是有史以来地球上存在的最顽强的生物-实际上，它可以在没有氧气，极端辐射甚至在火中存活数年！他们就是不死！一个欧洲研究人员小组在2007年在FOTON-M3火箭表面发射了一群活的水熊，绕地球运行了10天，它们完美地存活了下来！因此，火星上的生命更有可能是微观的。

With more and more probes and rovers being launched to search for life on Mars (if it exists), it is more likely humans will come across some form of life on Mars within some years if it exists. The recent Perseverance rover sent by NASA and landed in 2021, also has Astro-Biology as one of it’s mission obxtives.

随着越来越多的探测，以及漫游者号在火星上寻找生命（如果存在的话），如果存在，人类很可能会在几年内遇到某种形式的生命。美国国家航空航天局最近发射的毅力号漫游车将于2021年登陆，“天体生物学”就是它的任务目标之一。

(IMAGE SOURCE: NASA)

（图片来源：美国国家航空航天局（NASA））

Ali Mohammad,

There are 2 possibilities but its more a fiction than reality.

有两种可能性，但更像是虚构的。

Possibility 1:

Microbes could exist in Mars due to the Martian soil however, Mars atmosphere is not thick at all, it has small quantities of water vapor and does not have a magnetosphere in order to have surface atmosphere which is why life most likely does not exist; but if it did, it would be in the form of bacteria/germs undetectable to the naked eye in very few parts of the location with minimum radiation and wind pressure effects.

微生物可能存在于火星土壤中，但是，火星大气根本不浓，它具有少量的水蒸气，并且不具有磁层，所以就没有地表大气，这就是为什么火星最可能不存在生命的原因；但是，如果这样的话，它将在极少的辐射和风压影响下，以肉眼无法察觉的细菌的形式存在。

Possibility 2:

This possibility is too silly due to conspiracies but for the sake of it:

由于阴谋论，这个可能性太愚蠢了

Mars Alien Civilization Ruin/Fossil Ruins conspiracy theory

火星外星文明遗址/化石遗址阴谋论

Walled City on Martian atmosphere theory

火星大气理论城寨

Andrew Forrest

Given the shortage of clement conditions on Mars, we would not expect to find much more than simple prokaryote life on Mars such as bacteria. Something anaerobic that doesn’t require sunlight would be the obvious choice, such as anoxic iron cycling microbes which could survive in underground aquifers that we are reasonably sure exist on Mars.

鉴于火星上自然生存条件的匮乏，除了细菌等原核生物，我们不会期望在火星上找到更高级生物。不需要阳光的厌氧菌将是显而易见的选择，例如可以合理推断，在火星的地下含水层中可能存在厌氧的铁循环微生物。

This doesn’t sound like much to get excited about, but if we find these wee beasties there it will revolutionise biology, and literally double our number of known sources of life. Does this life have a shared genetic heritage with us and are our long lost cousins? Does this life have a completely different origin and use different methods of earning a living, so to speak? Either way it would be incredibly fascinating to find life on the red planet, and maybe we’ll have some answers before the middle of the century.

这听起来并不令人兴奋，但是，如果我们在那里找到这些小生物，它将彻底改变生物学，并使我们已知的生命来源的数量增加一倍。这些生命与我们有共同的遗传物质吗？是我们长期失散的表亲吗？还是可以说，这种生命是否有完全不同的起源，并使用不同的谋生手段？无论哪种方式，在红色星球上寻找生命都将令人着迷，也许我们会在本世纪中叶之前得到一些答案。