By Cameron Atfield

Copyright brisbanetimes

An ocean away, Professor David Flannery from Queensland University of Technology’s said the rock sample was exactly the kind of rock they were hoping to find.

“We have studied these features in the past, hoping to find them [on Mars],” he said.

“Apart from like a stromatolite, which is evidence for life at the surface in a lake, we found everything that we wanted to find – including igneous rocks that we can date that helps us put this sample into context.

“This sort of feature for life in the subsurface is exactly what we were hoping to find, so you’ve got to do a double-take and pour over the data, really study the data, for a long time to convince yourself that this could actually be something super exciting.”

The Brisbane astrobiologist was one of three QUT researchers, along with Dr Michael Jones and graduate student Brendan Orenstein, among 89 co-authors of the peer-reviewed paper of the findings, which was published in the journal Nature.