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July 16, 2008 : Mars was once 'a great place to live'
Mars was once "a great place to live" - awash with water and capable of supporting life, the findings of a new study suggest.
Recent missions to the Red Planet have revealed stunning details of the Martian landscape, mineralogy and clues to past climate.
But how much water, where it was or is located and what it was doing have been hard to pin down.
Now a study in the journal Nature by Prof John Mustard and Bethany Ehlmann of Brown University, Rhode Island, and colleagues provide information that leads him to conclude that it was a benign, water-rich environment for a long time, backing the idea that it could have supported microbial life.
Reporting for the first time results obtained from an instrument aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a probe that is researching the history of water on Mars, the team has found that vast regions of the ancient southern highlands of Mars once hosted a water-rich environment.
Daily Telegraph
