Mars as a dead and dusty planet can now be considered a thing of the past as NASA confirmed the presence of flowing water on its surface on Monday, leading to speculations that life may possibly thrive on the red planet.

In a report by the New York Times, earlier observations by NASA revealed that Mars was once a planet that contained excessive amounts of water, which explains the discovery of ancient rivers, lakes and maybe even an ocean. However, little evidence of modern moisture was then found, only in the form of minimally damp soil.

Then undergraduate of University of Arizona, Lujendra Olja, who studied photographs taken by Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter in 2010, was also puzzled with the long black streaks that appeared on Mars' surface, which seem to flow during warmer months and eventually disappear when the cold hits the planet, CBS News reports.

But NASA has confirmed through its latest announcement that the long black streaks Olja and colleagues have been puzzled about were actually liquid water flowing through the surfaces of the planet. Researchers said that its saltine component enabled the water to be in liquid form despite the harsh cold temperature in the planet, CBS News report adds.

"This is tremendously exciting," James L. Green, the director of NASA's planetary science division, said during in a news conference on Monday as reported by New York Times. "We haven't been able to answer the question, 'Does life exist beyond Earth?' But following the water is a critical element of that. We now have, I think, great opportunities in the right locations on Mars to thoroughly investigate that."

According to Reuters, although the presence of saltine water has been confirmed, its source and composition is yet to be studied. But regardless of its composition, NASA said that wherever there is water, there is life.

"Everywhere we go, where there is liquid water, whether it's deep in the earth or in the aerial region, we find life," said Green in the conference according to a CBS report.

But what kind of life? Green was asked. The NASA director said life may have been thriving on the red planet in the form of microbes. CBS News further reports that microbes living on Mars may have reach millions in number yet so tiny they can fit in an eye of a needle.

However, the microbes were speculated to be living in freshwater and not in the discovered briny water, Reuters said.

"If I were a microbe on Mars, I would probably not live near one of these (sites). I would want to live further north or south, quite far under the surface and where there's more of a freshwater glacier. We only suspect those places exist and we have some scientific evidence that they do," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science, Reuters adds.