Mysterious Ancient Lake on Mars: Key to Finding Alien Life on Red Planet?

There might be hope to find Martians after all.

Marking its 10^th year anniversary, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter found one of the youngest lakes leading to a postulation that life may be supported and sustained in Mars. In a report published on Aug. 11 in the journal Geology, three scientists were able to study the planet's terrain using the images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

While there is no liquid water in the planet today, Mars is known to be submerged in water 3.6 billion years ago, during the second wave of surface water on the planet. Because all forms of water have evaporated since then, the investigation for the existence of life also ceased little by little. That is, until the findings of Brian M. Hynek, Mikki K. Osterloo, and Kathryn S. Kierein-Young. The trio of scientists reported on Geology that the lake found is one of the youngest lakes and therefore, one of the last forms of liquid on Mars.

Lead author Hynek, who is also a research associate at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at Colorado University-Boulder, shares on Business Insider that the recent discovery is a good start for the prospective research on ancient extra-terrestrial life on Mars. "Having a later stage of water on Mars is probably a good thing for the potential for life on that planet because it gave life more time to be conceived," Hynek explains. "There was life on Earth when this lake was active so by that analogy, we can say there's potential that Mars had microbial life and this was a great place where it could have resided," he adds.

While studying the age and origins of salt deposits on Mars and using the results to estimate the volume of water on the Red Planet, Hynek and his team were led to the conclusion of the existence of the said lake. "Just like on Earth, when salts are left somewhere, that probably means that water was there. So, these are indicators that water was there in some form," Hynek clarifies, as reported by Examiner.  Hynek also proposes to study the salt deposits. "As the water evaporates away, a lot of organic matter and a lot of microbial evidence gets encased in salts and is preserved for long time periods."

As of today, this lake is regarded as the only evidence of water on Mars since 3.6 billion years ago. Hynek and his colleagues are clear on their plan to continue studying these salt deposits to see if there's more evidence of water on the planet.