The rover, which fell silent over a year ago and may never wake up, observed evidence of water just before it entered hibernation.
SETI's long-running initiative to use idle home computers to process data in the hunt for aliens has been halted.
Hibernating mammals like lemurs could play a role in helping mankind venture out on deep space missions.
Scientists have been investigating human hibernation as a way to enable long-haul space trips.
To help them survive long space trips astronauts could be put in to a form of artificial hibernation.