Flowing liquid water on mars!!

[Tink]

Flowing, liquid water... what are the immediate implications of that (from a scientific basis)? Does it follow that there "must" be some sort of living form on the planet? Water supports life, but does not create life.

[Skywatcher]

No MUST is too strong a word but it does make the peobability increase by many magnitudes. Life as we know it is dependant upon it even in very very tiny amounts. Life on earth and bacteria that we have here could exist in those conditions. Life is tenacious and exists in the most extreme habitats here, they even have snot moulds ( sorry ) that respire acid in caves here ie don't even require oxygen!!

A couple of years ago they found quite a bit of methane being emanated around mars and they still haven't been able to find where that came from - it either comes from 1. volcanic activity or 2. life - there is no evidence at all that Mars is still volcanically active in all the years it has been closely monitored....

Basically there is now a location for someone to go to that will give us the very best chance of finding extraterrestrial life, personally I will be just as excited if its a bacteria as if it had a flying saucer, as the implications are utterly immense