Scientists are studying the pictures sent by NASDA rover Curiosity and striking similarity has been observed between the ancient sedimentary rocks on Mars and the structures created by microbes on Earth.The latest findings hints but do not confirm that life may have existed on the red planet.

The pictures in the study were taken by Mars rover Curiosity when it traveled through the Gillespie Lake outcrop in Yellowknife Bay. It was a dry lakebed which had periodic flooding billions of years ago. Both Mars and Earth share a common history and the Red planet was wetter and warmer then.

On Earth, Microbes trap and rearrange sediments in lakes and coasts, forming characteristic features which then get fossilized with the passage of time. Such structures are known as microbially-induced sedimentary structures (or MISS).

Nora Noffke, a geobiologist, in the journal Astrobiology stated that the rocky bed of the Gillespie Lake outcrop on Mars looks like ancient microbial sedimentary structures.