As Curiosity Rover is commencing drilling under the Mars surface, NASA Photographs from Mars Orbiter show evidence of a dried-up large lake on the Mars surface. This is cited as further evidence of earlier surface water and supports the possibility of life.
The new photograph suggests that huge lakes of liquid water might lie underground.
This observation has raised hopes that life may have once existed - and might even still be there.
Nasa said that the image "adds to an increasingly complex picture" of Mars.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft photographed the floor of the McLaughlin Crater. This is 57 miles in diameter and over 1.4 miles deep, and at at one time was deep enough to let underground water flow into its interior.
Rocks in layers on the crater's bottom include carbonate and clay minerals, suggest water was once abundant inside the crater.
It appears that the crater was filled with water from an underground lake, rather than being washed in from outside, Nasa said.
"Taken together, the observations in McLaughlin Crater provide the best evidence for carbonate forming within a lake environment instead of being washed into a crater from outside," said Joseph Michalski.
Researchers believe that on Earth half of all living matter is made up of microbes living up to three miles underground.
Photonic Space huffingtonpost
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