Ancient Lakes On Mars Could Have Hosted Life - Say Scientists

Ancients lakes that prove there could have been life on Mars have been discovered by British scientists.

A forensic examination of satellite images revealed lakes up to 12.5 miles (20km) wide along Mars' equator - similar to those found in Alaska and Siberia.
But importantly, the lakes were linked by small tributaries and rivers, suggesting water was moving which means they would have been able to support microbial life, scientists from Imperial College London found.
Previously scientists believed that the lakes were merely ice, the research published in the journal Geology reported.
The lakes have been dated back three billion years and were probably created following volcanic activity in the region around the equator, which was previously thought to be a dry and arid.
Researcher Sanjeev Gupta, of Imperial College London, said the findings shed new light on our understanding of life on Mars.





"Potentially life could have survived in these lakes, we would be talking about microbial life," he said.
"But these are a potential place to go and look for that life."
The lakes are now dry but the depressions on the surface of Mars which they created remain, Mr Gupta said.
Mr Gupta said the tributaries and rivers which can been seen on the satellite photographs were an important indicator of the potential for life.
"We had discovered these depressions that could be lakes but they could have just contained ice which turned into gas when it melted but these channels connecting the lakes prove that the water must have been standing," he said.
Researchers had previously thought that there was water - and possibly life on Mars - around 3.8 to 4 billion years ago.
But today's findings throw open a whole new area of research after proving that the possibility of life was over a longer period of time.
The Imperial College researchers used images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to analyse the lakes.
Researchers plan to now focus their study on other areas along the equator of Mars to discover how widespread these lakes were and if the findings show there was widespread habitats that could have supported life.