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A new study reports that brackish water just below the Martian surface has the potential to contain enough oxygen molecules to support life.(Photo: Manjik, Getty Images / iStockphoto)

Mars continues to slowly give up its secrets.

If brackish water exists just below the Martian surface, it has the potential to contain enough oxygen molecules to support life, reports a new study.

The theoretical life may consist of simple animals like sponges or perhaps tiny microbes breathing oxygen.

"Oxygen is a key ingredient in determining the livability of an environment, but it is relatively rare on Mars," he said. Woody Fischer, a geobiologist Caltech, in a statement.

Researchers have discovered that at low altitudes and temperatures, an unexpected amount of oxygen may exist in Martian water – well above the threshold required to allow life to breathe oxygen in the oceans of the earth.

"No one has ever thought that the dissolved oxygen concentrations necessary for life (breathing by oxygen) could theoretically exist on Mars," said the senior author of the program. study, Vlada Stamenković, scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

More: NASA's Martian rover discovers "building blocks" for life: an organic matter 3 billion years old

More: Water detected on Mars, raising the possibility of finding life on the red planet

The discovery challenges the standard scientific view that Mars lacks places where life could evolve. Even though water exists on Mars – which has not yet been acquired – researchers have long rejected the idea that it might contain oxygen because Mars's atmosphere is about 160 times thinner than Earth's and mainly consists of carbon dioxide. But this new study contradicts this theory.

If oxygen-rich water existed on Mars, the concentrations would be "particularly high in the polar regions".

This research could help future space missions to Mars, providing better targets to rovers looking for signs of past or present living environments, said Stamenković.

The study was published Monday in Nature Geoscience, a peer-reviewed British journal.

This new study follows the announcement earlier this summer that scientists had detected a saltwater lake under the Martian ice. The discovery also raised the possibility of finding life on the red planet.

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