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A body of liquid water fulfills the first two requirements. Saltwater from the lake may contain nutrients that have been leached from surrounding rocks. The soils of the red planet are not different from those of the Earth, so there could be a lot of good chemicals available.
This leaves energy. Without sun, anything living in the lake would probably need a source of heat. Mars is much colder than the Earth, but there are traces of recent volcanoes on the surface of the planet. This raises the possibility that there may be magma in the depths of the planet; this could lead to hot springs or hydrothermal vents at the base of the lake
This image shows a hydrothermal vent stack which spits hydrothermal fluids.
: Image courtesy of Submarine Ring of Fire Exploration 2006, NOAA Vents Program
On Earth, there is life in such a place.
Deep under the Pacific Ocean, near the Galapagos Islands off the vents on the bottom of the sea. This smoke is filled with a stew of toxic chemicals and is hot and the water pressure is overwhelming.
Here, in one of the most inhospitable places imaginable, life grows. Bacteria have evolved to use toxic gas for food; other animals such as crabs and worms have evolved to feed on the bacteria.
Hydrothermal chimneys can support all kinds of wonderful life.
-American Submarine Ring of Fire 2005 Exploration; According to Bruce Schaefer, deputy director of the Macquarie University Planetary Research Center
a Martian could be a "very primitive". cellular organism that harvests sulfur for food and uses heat from geothermal sources for energy. Or it could be even more primitive than that – so much so that we could scarcely recognize it as life at all.
By chance, a chemical gloop can sometimes be organized in such a way as to provoke a chemical reaction that keeps repeating over and over again. Life probably evolved first as a simple self-sustaining reaction like this, says Associate Professor Schaefer
But not all life may have been confined to the lake because Mars It's not always been cold and dry. 3.5 billion years ago, Mars could have been hot and humid, just like Earth, scientists think.
"If life were to evolve, it would have been so," says Professor Schaefer
. its atmosphere, solar radiation evaporated most of the water and the planet froze.
If life has managed to evolve, it is possible that she was able to survive and be brought underground while the planet froze. In this scenario, the Martians could have evolved to be more complex before being transported to the underground lake.
"If life evolved on Mars, it's a refuge where it could still be there," says Professor Schaefer. "It's definitely somewhere we would like to go in. The ingredients are all there."
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