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托斯卡及其研究小组对“机遇号”探测到的已有40亿年历史的火星熔岩盐层进行了分析。分析结果表明，曾流过这些古老火星熔岩表面的水含盐量极高。

Tosca and his team analyzed salt deposits in the 4-billion-year-old Martian rock investigated by Opportunity. The new analysis shows that the water that would have flowed across these ancient Martian rocks may have been exceedingly briny.

研 究小组的另一位来自哈佛大学的安德鲁•H•诺尔说：“过去我们一直觉得，虽然火星现在的生存环境很恶劣，但在很久以前，火星的生存环境可能与地球很相似。 但这一结果充分说明，即使在40亿年前，火星表面的生存环境仍然很恶劣。无论我们将火星的历史追溯到多远，可能都无法知道这颗星球究竟在何时与地球很相 似。”

"Our sense has been that while Mars is a lousy environment for supporting life today, long ago it might have more closely resembled Earth," said Andrew H. Knoll, also of Harvard and on the study team. "But this result suggests quite strongly that even as long as four billion years ago, the surface of Mars would have been challenging for life. No matter how far back we peer into Mars' history, we may never see a point at which the planet really looked like Earth."

该研究结果于今年2月在波士顿召开的美国科学促进会的年会上公布。

The research was presented in February at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.