Scientists believe that a large crater, which has been discovered on Mars, might have been a lake several billion years ago.
A space vehicle, which NASA sent to explore Mars, has discovered layers of clay and carbonate minerals in the walls of this crater.
These substances may form in the ground only after the contact with water.
This crater, which has received the name of McLaughlin, is one of Mars's largest craters. It is 92 kms wide and 2 kms deep.
If the crater really was once full of water, this water has most likely penetrated from underground.
Mars is smaller than the Earth, and the gravity power on Mars is three times weaker than on the Earth.
Thus, scientists suppose that if underground waters have once existed on Mars, the soil layers that contained water were thicker and more clay-like than they were on the Earth.
These conditions are ideal for bacteria to appear, scientists say. It is not ruled out that there is still water under the crater's bottom and that bacteria still live there.
"The McLaughlin crater is an ideal place for scientists to examine the structure of Mars's soil," Russian scientist Evgeny Chernyakov says.
"The fact that there exists such a deep natural hollow on Mars allows scientists to examine Mars's soil without drilling artificial holes," Mr. Chernyakov says.
"This makes delivering the relevant equipment to Mars (which would have been very difficult and costly) unnecessary.
Now, all that we need is to send a small device to Mars, which would "look" into this crater and take photographs or samples of the soil.
From the ribs of the crater, we can rather easily take samples of the ground that would otherwise have been very hard to extract."
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