According to scientists there is now overwhelming evidence that rivers and lakes once existed on Mars.
They believe that most of this water was lost into space when the planet lost its protective magnetic field hundreds of millions of years ago.
This new theory comes after Nasa’s Curiosity rover found evidence of liquid brine on the planet. Researchers have discovered a chemical substance in Martian soil that absorbs water vapour from the atmosphere to form a brine that remains a liquid even when temperatures fall below the freezing point of water.
The study, published in the journal of Nature Geoscience, suggests that there was once a lake filling Gale crater on Mars, which would account for the layers of sediments detected by the Curiosity rover.