NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has provided enough evidence to suggest Mars could have supported life.
Scientists studying the data and photographs returned from Gale Crater by the rover over the last year have concluded that there is sufficient evidence to suggest that Mars would have been capable of supporting primitive organisms at some point in the distant past.
The primary candidates would have been life forms reminscent of Chemolithoautotrophs on Earth, organisms that live underground in caves and that receive their energy by breaking down rocks and minerals rather than from absorbing sunlight.
"For all of us geologists who are very familiar with what the early Earth must have been like, what we see in Gale really doesn't look much different," said Prof John Grotzinger.
Researchers believe that the conditions may have been right for these organisms to survive on Mars for several million years.
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