Billions of years ago, a network of lakes on Mars was capable of storing water for an extended period of time, NASA scientists have found.

In a Thursday news release, the team behind NASA's Mars Science Laboratory and the Curiosity rover . The information the team has gathered from the Curiosity rover shows water helped carry sediment, which was then deposited into Gale Crater. Over years, that sediment became the foundation for Mount Sharp, which is found in the middle of the crater that has been explored by the rover for quite some time.

A view from the "Kimberley" formation on Mars taken by NASA's Curiosity rover.

(NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

"Observations from the rover suggest that a series of long-lived streams and lakes existed at some point between about 3.8 to 3.3 billion years ago, delivering sediment that slowly built up the lower layers of Mount Sharp," said Ashwin Vasavada in the release. He's a Mars Science Laboratory project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, andco-author of the new Science article to be published Friday, Oct. 9.

(MORE: )

It's also believed that for all of this flowing water to be possible, the Red Planet's atmosphere must have been thicker and the climate had to be warmer billions of years ago, the report added. Temperatures on the planet these days , according to Space.com.

"What we thought we knew about water on Mars is constantly being put to the test,” Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in the release. "It’s clear that the Mars of billions of years ago more closely resembled Earth than it does today.

The news is the latest in a series of findings that all but confirm water was abundant on the Red Planet in the past, and it's believed to still be there. Last month, NASA made big news with the announcement that , a huge step forward in the theory that its surface may be able to sustain life.

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: The Mars Mission