Some of the newer research done by the mars lander "Phoenix" says that Mars may have water underneath the surface. The lander recently established that there is ice on the planet, and that the soil contains minerals that are created when water interacts with the ground. The final and most exciting of the discoveries is snow. The lander's laser identified snow falling roughly 2 miles from where the lander sits. These discoveries open a whole new field of questions. The most eminent among them is if Mars can support life. As of right now it cannot, but scientist say that it once was able to. The lander contains 8 ovens that look for minerals needed to support life and 4/4 tests have failed. The lander will be shut down soon because the sunlight reaching the section of Mars that the lander is on is waning. I believe that the planet can support life but only microbial life forms. Some of the main reasons that i think it can support life is that it has water, and is large enough to have the minerals needed to support life. However it may be a long time before the planet can support humans or anything much larger than single cells, as it's atmosphere is not adequete.
citation
Mars lander finds water sugesting past water. Tue september 30th 2008. Associated press. October 1st. <http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-science/20081001/Phoenix.Mars/>.
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I suppose it is possible that Mars could sustain small forms of life because it has water. I'm not sure of all the elements and stuff that are required to support life though. However I don't believe Mars could ever support any life form like a human. I don't even see how earth could possibly have done that. I do not believe evolution is true, so I definately don't think life as we know it on earth could form on Mars.
Maybe this could happen. Though I don't think this means anything considering we haven't come close to put a human on Mars. Maybe Mars could keep some very small forms of life that don't rely on anything but water and sunlight. But this doesn't mean anything to anybody but the scientific community.
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