New Mars images may show 'cradle of life' on the red planet

New images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter may show where life first began on Mars.

The site on southern Mars shows massive deposits in a basin that scientists say were formed a long time ago from water heated by a volcanically active area at the bottom of a large sea.

Although we have yet to discover signs of life on Mars, the site could tell us about where life began on Earth.

Because of Earth’s active crust, little evidence still exists from the time when scientists believe life began to form.

Since many scientists believe life began to form in stagnant pools of water heated by volcanic activity, the new discovery could tell us a lot about Mars and our own planet.

Paul Niles, who works at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, says: "This site gives us a compelling story for a deep, long-lived sea and a deep-sea hydrothermal environment."

But the site doesn’t only add to the mounting body of evidence that Mars was covered with water in the past.

It also gives scientists hope that potential undersea worlds live underneath the icy moons of Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus.

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