NASA’s Curiosity rover has found evidence that ancient Mars could have supported organisms, and they may even have thrived.

Curiosity touched down on Gale crater a little over seven months ago. The crater had been identified by satellite data as a possibly inhabitable environment.

The results were returned fast, with Curiosity discovering an ancient riverbed with a history of flowing water. Recently the Curiosity rover drilled into a rock nicknamed John Klein, and recovered a sample of powder that represents the environment of the Gale crater a billion years ago.

The samples showed 20-30% of the rock is made from minerals known as smectite clays, which were formed with the presence of water that was a neutral pH balance, and not too salty. This is contrary to other findings by other NASA rovers, which found clay minerals called jarosites, which were formed in the presence of acidity or highly salty water. Geologist, John Grotzinger said:

The key thing here is this is an environment that a microbe could have lived in and even prospered in.

These new findings are however not conclusive evidence of the presence of life on Mars, but scientists were struck by the similarity between the Martian surface, and dry lakebeds found on Earth. Grotzinger said:

The aqueous environment at Gale crater was so benign the water would have been safe to drink.

[Source: Space.com, Wired]