The moment many Mars watchers have been waiting for is here (sort of), as researchers now believe they have found evidence of subsurface liquid water on the Red Planet.

Their results published in the journal Nature, the researchers analyzed a trove of data from NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars' surface and the MAVEN spacecraft orbiting the planet. Though ice has already been found on Mars, the new study indicates the possibility that that ice is being melted underneath the planet's surface near the equator.

"We have discovered the substance calcium perchlorate in the soil and, under the right conditions, it absorbs water vapor from the atmosphere," Morten Bo Madsen, associate professor and head of the Mars Group at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, said in a press release. "Our measurements from the Curiosity rover's weather monitoring station show that these conditions exist at night and just after sunrise in the winter.

"Based on measurements of humidity and the temperature at a height of 1.6 meters and at the surface of the planet, we can estimate the amount of water that is absorbed."

In other words, the perchlorate converts ice into water at night and in the early morning hours just beneath Mars' surface near the equator. Curiosity is also in a good position to make this discovery, as NASA landed the rover in the Gale Crater, which lies close to the Red Planet's equator.

At a recent panel discussion, NASA's top scientists said there is a strong possibility alien life exists away from Earth. However, the Los Angeles Times reported, they said alien life does not necessarily mean there is another humanoid race out there.

"When night falls, some of the water vapor in the atmosphere condenses on the planet surface as frost, but calcium perchlorate is very absorbent and it forms a brine with the water, so the freezing point is lowered and the frost can turn into a liquid," Madsen said. "The soil is porous, so what we are seeing is that the water seeps down through the soil. Over time, other salts may also dissolve in the soil and now that they are liquid, they can move and precipitate elsewhere under the surface."