It's the first time astronomers have seen the green glow around a planet other than Earth.

Data collected by NASA and ESA probes orbiting the red planet provide the first geological evidence for an ancient Martian groundwater system, according to researchers.

Opportunity was built to operate for just three months but kept going and going, was pronounced dead 15 years after it landed on the red planet.

InSight — the eighth successful Martian lander — should be wrapping up two years of digging and quake monitoring by the time rovers arrive from the U.S., Europe and China.

It might be another decade before human beings touch down on the our neighbouring planet, but Canadian researchers are helping to get things off the ground.

A team at Concordia University has recently completed a series of tests it hopes will help the next Mars rover mission succeed where others have failed.

"This time we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprint."

The announcement is part of a project NASA unveiled earlier this year, dubbed "Deep-Space Gateway."

In their research paper, Wadsworth and Cockell refer to the surface of Mars as hostile or "inimical to life." 

Scientists at the European Space Agency downplayed the likely loss of its Mars lander, saying Thursday that a wealth of data sent back by the experimental probe would help them prepare for a future mission to the red planet.