On Earth, researchers are increasingly realizing that wherever you look for life you find it. But planners are still struggling with where such areas will most likely be. Skidmore said the glacier research points to the bases of Martian polar caps, particularly the larger northern cap, as good targets in the search for life because conditions similar to those he studied could be found there. The most critical condition is, of course, liquid water. Scientists are still debating whether there is currently liquid water under the Martian caps, but there is strong evidence that such water existed in the geological past because the caps were once thicker and would have trapped more ice-melting heat given off by the planet.
Volcanic activity is also a possibility for today and the past.
If so, said Skidmore, then the accessible ice either at the current cap's margin, or buried in ice just below the surface of the historical margins, might hold preserved extraterrestrial microbes. Farmer and other researchers have also advocated the fringes of glaciers as targets in the search for life. NASA is currently in the process of establishing directions for the Mars program in the decade or more to follow the recently announced rover mission. Farmer is a member of a committee that recently made recommendations to NASA on how best to direct the search for life on Mars. He said one of the priorities the group identified was designing missions that could answer questions related to finding life under the caps such as whether liquid water currently exists there.