Tiny photosynthetic microbes could be secretly thriving on Mars — hiding inside small bubbles of liquid water in the thin layers of dusty ice that litter the Red Planet’s surface, a new NASA-led study reveals.
Researchers believe the icy patches could be among the most promising targets in the hunt for extraterrestrial life within our solar system — and plan to recreate them in the laboratory on Earth to test the predictions.
Mars is a surprisingly icy world: The planet has frozen sand dunes covering its north pole, giant slabs of carbon dioxide ice above its south pole and massive chunks of frozen water buried near its equator. However, it also has smaller sub-zero features, including patches of dusty water ice left behind by ancient snow drifts that clung to specific spots on the planet’s surface, such as the bottoms of gullies and ravines.
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