Water was running freely on Mars about one million years ago, according to new pictures from the planet. Images from a NASA spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet show fan-shaped gullies on the surface which seem to be about 1.25 million years old. Experts think the channels were created by surface water from melting ice. The team from Brown University, in Rhode Island, America, say it may represent the most recent time when water flowed on the planet.

But Samuel Schon, from the university, said that it didn’t mean there was a lot of water. He said signs of a gully system for the water, even though it dates back to more than one million years ago.