"Which, of course, raises the biggest question of all: Could there be life in the waters beneath Mars' southern ice caps?
It's certainly possible, says Montana State University glaciologist John Priscu. An expert in the biogeochemistry and microbiology of subglacial environments here on Earth, Priscu led the first team to discover microbial life in a lake beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet. "You need three things for life: liquid water; an energy source, like leaching minerals, which we know Mars has; and a biological seed," he says. It's plausible that the lake beneath Mars' southern pole possesses the first two. As for the whole spark-of-life thing, "I'm not sure we'll ever know where the seed comes from," he says. But if Earth got a seed, maybe Mars did, too."
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