Martians ‘Hiding’ On Red Planet?

Martians maybe hiding underground on Mars to stay alive, new research suggests. Aliens could have burrowed below the red planet's surface to avoid deadly radiation above.

Now scientists led by the University College London say probes need to drill deeper into the planet if they want to find signs of life.

Lewis Dartnell, lead author of UCL report, said: "Finding hints that life once existed - proteins, DNA fragments or fossils - would be a major discovery in itself.

"But the Holy Grail for astrobiologists is finding a living cell that we can warm up, feed nutrients and reawaken for studying.

"It just isn't plausible that dormant life is still surviving in the near-subsurface of Mars - within the first couple of metres below the surface - in the face of the ionizing radiation field."

Survival times near the surface reach only a few million years. This means that the chance of finding life with the current probes is slim.

Scientists will need to dig deeper and target very specific, hard-to-reach areas such as recent craters or areas where water has recently surfaced.

The team found that the best places to look for living cells on Mars would be within the ice at Elysium because the frozen sea is relatively recent - it is believed to have surfaced in the last FIVE million years.

Mr Dartnell said: "We have found that this suspected frozen sea in Elysium represents one of the most exciting targets for landing a probe, as the long-term survival of cells here is better than underground in icy rock.

"This could be crucial for the scientists and engineers planning future Mars missions to find life."

Unlike Earth, Mars is not protected by a global magnetic field or thick atmosphere and for billions of years it has been laid bare to radiation from space.