Photo May Show a Spring on Mars

June 21 -- Data from the Mars Global Surveyor, a satellite orbiting the planet, have shown surface water may still exist on the surface of the Red Planet, sources tell ABCNEWS.

Science magazine is expected to announce on Thursday that scientists have found evidence of an active spring of water at the bottom of a Mars canyon. Scientists believe this deep canyon was cut out by wind over the years.

One theory is the wind has eroded the ground down so far down that the water table has been exposed. One source likened it to a hot spring you might find in Yellowstone Park, another likened it to a possible small oasis.

A Significant Discovery

The search for water on Mars has been a major effort of NASA’sexploration of the planet. The presence of water, expertssay, could mean a much greater chance that some primitive form oflife, probably microbes, could exist on Mars.

“The presence of liquid water has always been accepted as the one thing — at least the one thing on Earth — that you absolutely have to have for life to be present,” said Richard Hoover, an expert in micro-organisms living in extreme conditions at the NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

Hoover’s 30 years of research on micro-organisms living in extreme conditions on Earth, has led him to believe it is highly possible life exists on Mars. Much of his work has been in the below freezing temperatures of Antarctica, a region scientists believe is similar to the polar ice caps of Mars. There he has studied micro-organisms that live on permanently frozen ground, known as permafrost, and even on ice.

“The prospect of liquid water on Mars is very exciting because it gets at the fundamental question people have always asked of ’are we alone in the universe?’” said Hoover, who was not involved in the new research.

“If we have life available today on Mars then it may be possible in the future to … discover whether life on another body of the solar system behaves in the same way as life on Earth.” That kind of information, Hoover explained, could lead to a better understanding of life, in general, and to developing new treatments for illnesses and disease.