Oldest Fossils Ever Found in Australia

And the hardy little cells help suggest that organisms that don't need oxygen to live could eke out an existence on Mars.

British scientists have found the oldest fossils in the world in western Australia, and they say the 3.4-billion-year-old organisms could evidence that life doesn't need oxygen to exist. The fossils are of microscopic, single-celled organisms that lived long before there was enough oxygen in the atmosphere to sustain more complex life, leading the Oxford University researchers to believe the organisms could have lived off of sulphur, which was in steady supply at the time. The team says that if life could exist on Earth during its most inhospitable era (think nothing but rock, magma, fire, and tectonic anger), then it's entirely possible that similar organisms could survive on Mars, where there are similarly low levels of oxygen but more than enough sulphur to go around. Do you hear that, single-celled organisms from a few billion years ago? The Red Planet is just begging for your business.