609248 external_news 1533157857 1533157857 Researchers appear to have identified a 12-mile (20 kilometer) wide salty lake underneath a massive glacier on Mars. Their research, published Wednesday in the journal Science, opens up the possibility that microbial life may live in this liquid place on Mars. Mars is rich in perchlorate, a salt often used in propellants on Earth. But some microbes thrive on it, just as  Earth's marine microbes thrive on carbon dioxide. "People might think that’s nasty stuff," said Jennifer Glass, an astrobiologist at Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, who wasn't involved in the research. "That's not true. Microbes can breathe perchlorate — a lot of life can breathe perchlorate."

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