8 Things You Need To Know About NASA Finding Water On Mars

Considering that, as far as we know, all life in the universe (i.e. the stuff on Earth) needs liquid water in order to survive, the discovery of liquid water on the surface of Mars greatly increases that chances for finding life there too.

No, scratch that, it vastly increases the chances of finding life there that we would recognise as life.

The reason why scientists have always had such a fascination with finding life on Mars is because it's so similar to Earth, not to mention so close. It makes far more sense to start then rather than, say, Jupiter.

The search for life in the universe is essentially a process of elimination going from most like Earth to least. Remember, people were once obsessed with the idea that aliens lived on the Moon before it was proved otherwise, we've only just really set our sights on Mars.

The long and short of it is that the liquid water on the surface of Mars is incredibly salty, and might not actually harbour life at all. In the conference it was said that, actually, a microbe on Mars is more likely to live beneath the surface anyway.

That said, it might. That's the point of this discovery - it is not an end in itself, but a key part of the process (that process being building up a picture of the universe, life or not).