Posted: Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 7:08 AM ET (1208 GMT)
A basin studied by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover likely hosted a lake early in the planet's history that could have supported life, scientists announced Monday. The basin within Gale Crater, called Yellowknife Bay, features sedimentary rocks called mudstones that, on Earth, form in lakebeds, according to scientists who studied data collected by Curiosity there. Those rocks contain minerals that form in freshwater lakes and in conditions that would have supported microbial life. Scientists believe the lake was 50 kilometers long by 5 kilometers wide and lasted for tens of thousands of years, based on the thickness of sediments seen in the area. Scientists emphasized that while the lake featured conditions that were supportive of life, there was no evidence that any life formed there when the lake existed early in the planet's history.

Related Links:

•  SPACE.com article
•  NBCNews.com article
•  New York Times article
•  Washington Post article
•  NASA press release