NASA: Mars may have supported life

NEW YORK. March 13. KAZINFORM Dusty and desolate Mars once had conditions favorable for microbial life, NASA scientists announced Tuesday.

The conclusion was based on the Curiosity rover's analysis of a rock sample drawn from an ancient stream bed on the Red Planet.

The sample contained sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon -- "some of the key chemical ingredients for life," NASA said.

"We have characterized a very ancient, but strangely new 'gray Mars' where conditions once were favorable for life," said John Grotzinger, Mars Science Laboratory project scientist at the California Institute of Technology, Kazinform refers to CNN.