Mars BREAKTHROUGH: Life on Mars could be found after scientists find crucial evidence

They found features on the floors of these craters that could only have formed in the presence of water. Many craters contain multiple features, all at depths of 4000 to 4500 m – indicating that these craters once contained pools and flows of water that changed and receded over time.

Features include channels etched into crater walls, valleys carved out by sapping groundwater, dark, curved deltas thought to have formed as water levels rose and fell, ridged terraces within crater walls formed by standing water, and fan-shaped deposits of sediment associated with flowing water.

The water level aligns with the proposed shorelines of a putative martian ocean thought to have existed on Mars between three and four billion years ago.

Co-author Gian Gabriele Ori, director of the Università D’Annunzio’s International Research School of Planetary Sciences, Italy added: “We think that this ocean may have connected to a system of underground lakes that spread across the entire planet.”