NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has made a shocking discovery which will have cracked how the pink planet as soon as supported life.

The car-sized robotic, which touched down on the floor again in 2012, discovered an array of well-preserved historic mud cracks suggestive of previous moist and dry seasons.

It's lengthy been theorised that persistent Earth-like climate cycles may have helped microbial life thrive on Mars, and researchers imagine the distinctive hexagonal patterns could be the proof.

William Rapin, lead creator of a brand new paper within the Nature journal, stated: "This is the first tangible evidence we have seen that the ancient climate of Mars had such regular, Earth-like wet-dry cycles.

"Wet-dry cycles are useful - perhaps even required - for the molecular evolution that might result in life."

Curiosity first noticed the mud cracks in 2021 after drilling a pattern from a location nicknamed Pontours.

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It got here throughout it throughout its ascent of the three-mile-high Mount Sharp within the Gale Crater.

Different minerals have been discovered throughout the world, with some components wealthy in clay (which normally types in water) and others with sulfates (which are inclined to type as water dries up).

The cracks have been present in a transitional zone, providing a glimpse right into a interval when lengthy dry spells grew to become extra prevalent and the crater's old lakes and rivers started to recede.

Mud fractures into T-shaped junctions because it dries out, however softens and turns Y-shaped when repeatedly uncovered to water once more, finally forming a hexagonal sample that has been preserved for billions of years.

These wet-dry cycles are important to the formation of polymers - the molecules thought of to be the chemical constructing blocks of life.

The cracks are by no means the first sign of Mars once supporting microbial life, however NASA stated the paper's findings have been one other signal of how rather more proof there might be for Curiosity to search out.