“The chances of finding life on Mars could be improved by looking in craters made by asteroids, according to a study.

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh said organisms had been discovered thriving deep underneath a site in the US where an asteroid crashed 35 million years ago.

They believe such craters provide refuge for microbes.

The findings suggest that crater sites on other planets may be "hiding life".

To find the microbes, researchers drilled almost 2km below one of the largest asteroid impact craters on Earth, in Chesapeake, US.

Samples from below ground showed that microbes are unevenly spread throughout the rock, suggesting that the environment is continuing to settle 35 million years after impact…”

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