| starlight | Date: Tuesday, 10-December-2013, 8:56 PM | Message # 1 |
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| The ancient lake environment found in Mars' Gale Crater could have supported microbes called chemolithoautotrophs - if they had been present.
That is the conclusion of scientists after reviewing all the pictures and other data gathered in the deep impact bowl by Nasa's Curiosity rover.
Chemolithoautotrophs do not need light to function; instead, they break down rocks and minerals for energy.
On Earth, they exist underground, in caves and at the bottom of the ocean.
In Mars' Gale Crater, such organisms would have found just as conducive a setting, and one that the scientists now think could have lasted for many millions of years.
"For all of us geologists who are very familiar with what the early Earth must have been like, what we see in Gale really doesn't look much different," Curiosity chief scientist Prof John Grotzinger told BBC News.
Read more/full article/source - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25191316
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