The planet Mars is in the news, with reports that NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission revealed some interesting evidence that the "Red Planet" was once a warm place where water, and perhaps flowers, once existed.
This brings about speculation that they may have been life on Mars billions of years ago.
Two NASA robots, the Spirit and Opportunity, both made discoveries that scientists have been trying to confirm for years. The Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars just weeks apart in 2004.
Photos of Mars from NASA exploration
CBS reports that Spirit "stumbled onto an ancient hydrothermal system, where heat energy and liquid water may have created conditions capable of supporting life as we know it."
In August 2012, the gigantic Mars rover Curiosity arrived on planet Mars. It landed inside the Gale Crater in hopes of finding out if the planet once supported microbial life.
So far, the Curiosity has discovered a stream bed that may have had water flowing through it for thousands of years prior to drying up.
The NY Daily news also reports that petal-shaped cluster spotted on Mars by the Curiosity brought forth speculation that flowers might be blooming on the planet.
Less than scientific information about Mars has also popped up outside of the NASA project.
Software engineer Kevin Gill created images of Mars using computer modeling. His images show that there may have been large bodies of water and the planet looked quite similar to Earth many years ago.
The Daily Mail reports that Gill used topographical data from Nasa to create a 3D model of the red planet.
'The resulting model was then brought into GIMP (painting software) were I painted in land features using a NASA Blue Marble Next Generation image for the source textures."
While not scientific, the photos are spectacular and create even more speculation that life may have existed on Mars.
NASA's Spirit robot reportedly stopped communicating with the Earth in 2010, but the Opportunity is still working away, currently exploring clay deposits on the rim of the Edeavour Crater on Mars.
NASA officials announced recently that the Curiosity will continue to roam about Mars as long as it is "scientifically viable."
