Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll probably have heard that NASA recently announced that they have identified flowing water on Mars.

We've known for some time now that there has been water on the Red Planet in the past, but this announcement marked the first time that water has actually been found in its liquid form on the surface of the planet.

So just what does water on Mars actually mean for us?

The biggest take-away from the announcement that water has been discovered on Mars is the potential for life. Water is a key component of life as we know it on Earth, so the discovery that this magical substance also exists on Mars opens up a lot of possibilities.

Life could already exist on Mars; not the four-headed, googly eyed monster martian kind of life we often see in Hollywood films, but microbes and bacteria could be thriving in the newly discovered damp nooks and crannies of the Red Planet.

The other big thing that the discovery means is that the possibility of humans colonising Mars is one step closer. A source of water to drink, irrigate crops and bathe in would be invaluable to any theoretical future astronauts, were they to land on the planet.

Having a source of H20 on the planet's surface would mean one less thing any potential colonisers had to bring with them on the treacherous journey, expected to take around seven months, although it depends on the exact proximity of the planets when the mission takes place. 

Treading carefully

The salty streaks of water which have been discovered on the Martian surface mean that the area in which the streaks were found will become a designated special area in which spacecraft are not allowed to touch down. This is because of the risk of contamination; it's not currently possible to render a landing craft sterile enough to, well, land.

If a microbe were able to hitch-hike on a spacecraft and gain a foothold thanks to the surface water, its existence could not only complicate the verification of any life found on the planet as definitively not from Earth, it could even become an invasive species, wiping out native life.

It's a scenario that isn't beyond the realms of possibility; it simply takes into account the horrible ecological consequences that introducing invasive species has had in a more local context. See: rats wiping out dodos and the dwindling red squirrel population in the UK after the introduction of the grey squirrel.

The discovery of water on Mars doesn't mean a lot to you and I in our day to day lives, but over the next few decades it could mean manned missions to Mars become a realistic possibility, opening up the possibility for lots of new scientific discoveries and a wealth of natural resources we may be able to tap into.