The discovery of strange, mineral veins on Mars has planetary scientists buzzing. And no wonder: the find may shed new light on the Red Planet's watery past and could even help reveal whether Mars was once habitable.
火星上奇异纹路的发现让行星科学家们像蜜蜂一样嗡嗡个不停。这些发现能帮助了解火星的有水的岁月，并且能帮助回答火星是否曾经适合居住这个问题。
NASA's Curiosity rover spotted the prominent veins in "Garden City." That's the name scientists use for a geologically rich site on towering Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons), a mountain that rises almost 3.5 miles off the Martian surface.
好奇号火星车是在"花园城市"发现到这些明显的纹路。"花园城市"是指在夏普山上的一个地理现象丰富的地方。夏普山高3.5英里。
A composite image of the veins was made by combining 28 separate photos taken on March 18, 2015 by the right-eye camera of the rover's Mastcam instrument.
火星号在2015年3月18号拍下了关于纹路的28张不同的照片，它们被组合成了一张照片（即下图）。

冰淇淋三明治是下面这样的

再来一张好奇号的照片

"Some of them look like ice-cream sandwiches: dark on both edges and white in the middle," Linda Kah, a member of the Curiosity science team at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, said in a written statement.
好奇号火星车的科学小组成员琳达在一份书面声明中说道："有些纹路像冰淇淋三明治：两边黑中间白。"
According to Kah and her colleagues, the veins -- which jut out 2.5 inches above a patch of eroded bedrock -- likely formed when fluids moved through cracked rock and deposited minerals. The light veins are made of calcium sulfate, which has been found by the rover in other nearby locations, according to the researchers.
琳达和她的同事说，这些纹路位于一块腐蚀的岩床上，高为2.5英寸。这些纹路可能是在液体流经碎岩和沉积矿物质时候形成的。据研究员称，那些明亮的纹路是有硫酸钙组成的，它们在附近的地方也有被发现。
The dark veins? They're a bit of a mystery.
暗纹路？它们有点神秘。
"There's something very different of these veins than what we have seen prior [sic]," Kah told the Los Angeles Times.
琳达说："暗纹路和我们之前看到的亮纹路大为不同。"
The researchers hope further analysis will yield new clues about the chemical make-up of the fluids that deposited the veins, as well as the changing environmental conditions on ancient Mars. So far, they believe both types of veins formed after the mud in a lake at Mount Sharp's base dried up and hardened, Space.com reported, and the dark veins were deposited prior to the light ones.
研究员们希望对纹路的分析能展露更多的关于形成纹路液体的成分的线索，同时也希望得到远古火星环境变化的线索。目前为止，研究员们认为这两种纹路都是在夏普山的湖里的泥土变干变硬后形成的；暗纹路比亮纹路先形成。
The finding adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that ancient Mars had key ingredients for life. Just last week, Curiosity discovered a biologically useful form of nitrogen in samples of sand and mudstone.
这些纹路的发现加大了火星有生命所需关键物质的猜测。就在上个星期，好奇号在沙和泥岩的样本中发现了氮的有用于生命形成的一种存在形式。
The rover landed on Mars on August 6, 2012 and reached the base of Mount Sharp on September 11, 2014.
好奇号火星车在2012年8月6日登陆火星，在2014年9月11日到达夏普山脚下。