WASHINGTON, March 23: The US mission on Mars has established that a salty sea existed on the Red Planet that could have supported life, NASA said on Tuesday. The robotic probes Opportunity and Spirit have been on Mars since January looking for signs of life.

"We think Opportunity is parked on what was once the shoreline of a salty sea on Mars," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, the principal scientific expert for the Mars mission. "We have an environment that's suitable for life," Squyres added.

Rock formations that Opportunity has studied were formed by salt water sedimentation. NASA officials, however, were unable to determine when the salty sea existed, or even its size.

Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for space science, said the result "gives us impetus to expand our ambitious programme of exploring Mars to learn whether microbes have ever lived there and, ultimately, whether we can." The results were confirmed by independent experts before being made public, NASA officials said. -AFP