Mars 'super dry' over 600 million years

Serious arid conditions that last for more than 600 million years on Mars can wipe out all that life, no matter how tough.

The expert team led by Tom Pike of the Royal College of London spent three years analyzing the Martian soil samples collected by NASA's Phoenix mission in 2008.

Phoenix landed in the northernmost region of Mars in an effort to find life on the red planet and collect samples of ice and soil on the surface, according to the Geophysical Research Letter.

Phoenix explores the surface of Mars

The analysis shows that the surface of Mars may have been in a dry state for hundreds of millions of years, despite the presence of ice.

An earlier study also showed that the planet once had warmer and wetter times than at least 3 billion years ago.

Expert Pike explained: 'We found that despite many ice, Mars has been going through a long period of super dryness for hundreds of millions of years . '

Future missions of NASA (US Aerospace Agency) and ESA (European Aerospace Agency) will have to 'dig' deeper if they want to find traces of life on Mars.