Conditions suitable for life -- most notably the presence of water -- may once have existed all over Mars, the European Space Agency (ESA) said Friday.
Hydrated silicate minerals were found by the ESA's Mars Express and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance orbiters in northern lowlands of the Red Planet, a clear indication that water once flowed there, ESA said in a statement ahead of the publication of a study in journal Science.
Water was present on the surface of Mars four billion years ago but lasted for only a few hundred million years, according to principal investigator Jean-Pierre Bibring from the University of Paris.
