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New findings are offering prospect of water on Mars, an issue that has been puzzling scientists for long time now.

Traces of water on Mars are under a thin varnish of iron oxide, or rust, similar to conditions found on desert rocks in California's Mojave Desert, NASA said in a statement on Friday.

According to NASA scientists, many more outcrops of carbonates that form mainly in large water bodies have been spotted on Mars surface. These patches are more in number than originally expected.

"It's possible that an important clue, the presence of carbonates, has largely escaped the notice of investigators trying to learn if liquid water once pooled on the Red Planet," Janice Bishop, a planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center at the SETI Institute at Moffett Field, California, said.

The new findings that appeared in the Friday July 1, online edition of the International Journal of Astrobiology, were similar to observations provided by NASA's Mars Reconnaissa... >>>