In case there comes a day when scientists find life on the Red Planet, they might just want to be thankful to a small fungi discovered on Antarctic rocks.

The cryptoendolithic fungi are usually located in the McMurdo Dry Valleys in the Antarctic Victoria Land, but they were lately sent to the International Space Station by European researchers. When it stayed on board in conditions alike those on Mars for 18 months, the researchers discovered that most of them survived.

In a statement, co-researcher on the project Rosa de la Torre Noetzel, from Spain’s National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA), said, “The most relevant outcome was that more than 60 percent of the cells of the endolithic communities studied remained intact after ‘exposure to Mars,’ or rather, the stability of their cellular DNA was still high”.

While taking about the work, De la Torre added that the results have helped them in assessing the survival ability and long-term stability of microorganisms and bioindicators on the Red Planet’s surface, information which is primary and important for future experiments surrounding the search for life on Mars. The findings of the work were described in a paper appeared in the journal Astrobiology.

The search for life’s presence on Mars has got deepened of late, after the revelations previous year that NASA scientists had found flowing liquid salty water on the Martian surface.

Since long, scientists were aware about the presence of frozen water at Mars' poles, but they have never found liquid water. The discovery is likely to have massive consequences for future expeditions, such as the goal of NASA to send a manned mission to the Red Planet by the 2030s, making the possibility of life on Mars stronger.

The most recent work on fungi has only come as an add-on to the likelihood that life could have thrived on Mars once.