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Now on to a great debate. For centuries, man has always thought about lifeforms in other planets. Now, we could be closer than we ever had been with proving that there really is life away from the Green Planet. Our tool: the NASA rover Curiosity.

After thorough study, images taken by the car-sized robotic rover that landed on Mars in 2012 reveal the intriguing similarity of ancient sedimentary rocks on Mars and those structures that were produced by microbes here on Earth. These findings strongly suggest life in the Red Planet.

Closer than You Think

The Mars rover Curiosity photos were taken as the vehicle went trough the Gillespie Lake outcrop in an area in Mars known as Yellowknife Bay, a dried lakebed that saw seasonal flooding billions of years before.

Mars and Earth may share a similar early history though the Red Planet may have been wetter yet warmer in its early days.

On Earth, microbes taking the shape of carpet-like colonies form distinctive features by trapping and rearranging sediments in lakes and coastal areas. These structures fossilize making them evident over time. Collectively, these structures are known as MISS (microbially-induced sedimentary structures).

The good thing is MISS are all over Earth mainly in shallow water settings.

Now a similar set of structures as the Earth's MISS is revealed at a rock bed in Gillespie Lake outcrop on Planet Mars, according to a recent study by of geobiologist Nora Noffke posted in the Astrobilogy journal.

Connecting the Dots

A geobiologist at Old Dominion University in Virginia, Nora Noffke has studied microbial structures for 20 years now.

Recently, she went public with her discovery of MISS said to be 3.48 billion years old found in the Dresser Formation in Western Australia. The discovery is potentially the oldest signs of life in the planet.

In her paper published online via the Astrobiology journal, Noffke connects the dots revealing the striking similarities the Martian sedimentary structures in Gillespie Lake outcrop with those microbial stuctures on Earth.

Also, those Martian structures are almost 3.7 billion years old, a timeframe not so distant as the MISS from Western Australia.

However, Noffke's case may have increased the probability of ancient life on Mars but does not constitute conclusive evidence of the existence.

As Noffke confirmed it herself, "All I can say is, here's my hypothesis and here's all the evidence that I have, although I do think that this evidence is a lot."

To get a better confirmation rock samples will have to be returned on Earth, a mission that may take a longer time to accomplish in the future.