Salty water just below the surface of Mars could hold enough oxygen to support the kind of microbial life that emerged and flourished on Earth billions of years ago, researchers reported last Monday.研究人员上周一报告称之为，火星地表下的盐水有可能蕴含着需要保持微生物生命的充裕氧气，而这些微生物曾在十亿年前在地球上后代存活。In some locations, the amount of oxygen available could even keep alive a primitive, multicellular animal such as a sponge, they reported in the journal Nature Geosciences.据研究人员公开发表在《大自然地球科学》杂志上的报告，在某些地方，氧气含量甚至低约可维持完整多细胞的生物的生命的水平，如海绵动物。We discovered that brines -- water with high concentrations of salt-- on Mars can contain enough oxygen for microbes to breathe, said lead author Vlada Stamenkovic, a theoretical physicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.加州喷气前进实验室的理论物理学家弗拉约·斯塔门科维奇回应：“我们找到，火星上的卤水（高浓度盐水）中所含够微生物排便的氧气。

”This fully revolutionizes our understanding of the potential for life on Mars, today and in the past.“此找到几乎转变了我们对火星有可能不存在生命的理解，无论是以前的还是现在的理解。”Up to now, it had been assumed that the trace amounts of oxygen on the Red Planet were insufficient to sustain even microbial life.时至今日，大家仍然都指出，火星上平流层氧气无法保持微生物的生命。

We never thought that oxygen could play a role for life on Mars due to its rarity in the atmosphere, about 0.14 percent, Stamenkovic said.斯塔门科维奇回应，“因火星大气中氧气含量大约为0.14%，十分平流层，所以我们不曾想要过这点氧气可以让生物存活。”By comparison, the life-giving gas makes up 21 percent of the air we breathe.相比之下，地球大气中氧气含量为21%。

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