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Mars may have once supported life, NASA says

Posted at 12:16 PM, Mar 12, 2013
and last updated 2013-03-12 14:16:57-04

By CNN Staff

(CNN) — Dusty and desolate Mars once had conditions favorable for microbial life, NASA scientists announced Tuesday.

The conclusion was based on the Curiosity rover’s analysis of a rock sample drawn from an ancient stream bed on the Red Planet.

The sample contained sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon — “some of the key chemical ingredients for life,” NASA said.

“We have characterized a very ancient, but strangely new ‘gray Mars’ where conditions once were favorable for life,” said John Grotzinger, Mars Science Laboratory project scientist at the California Institute of Technology.

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