“Our models tell us that if there is water present in the Martian sub-surface then it could be habitable – as an extensive region of the subsurface is at temperatures and pressures comfortable for terrestrial life,” said the lead author Eriita Jones in a press release.
Their research, which is published today in the journal Astrobiology, could serve as a guide to future Martian exploration missions that are looking for indigenous Martian life.
However, current Mars rovers don’t have the capability to dig deep enough to test the researchers’ findings.
In an earlier paper, the same researchers applied a statistical technique to the Earth to determine where life existed on Earth and where it didn’t.
They then used the techniques from that earlier study and applied them to Mars. What they found is that about 3% of the total volume of Mars is capable of supporting Earth-based lifeforms.
That may not sound like a lot – until you consider that only 1% of the Earth’s volume is inhabited.
It will be interesting to see if future generations of Martian rovers will have the capability to follow up on this research.
I’d be curious to see if the new rover, Curiosity, will be near one of the regions that these researchers uncovered. One of that rover’s goal is to look for ideal places for future rover missions to search for life.
If Curiosity is able to find any signs of life at all near regions identified in this paper, that would make it an excellent roadmap for future Martian missions.
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