Arctic ice microbes suggest Mars could also have life

Living microbes found in what could be 1 million-year-old ice on a remote Arctic island support a theory the frozen planet Mars could also sustain life, researchers said today.

An international team drilled ice core samples on the remote Svalbard islands at the extinct Sverrefjell volcano. They said that was the only place on Earth with the same minerals – called magnetite crystals – as those found on a meteorite from Mars that was discovered in the Antarctic in 1996.