In a nutshell, Curiosity drilled into a rock to examine it chemically, and found evidence of clay minerals, which form in water. We’ve seen this before on Mars, but another important aspect of this is that it looks like the water that formed these minerals was neutral, not too strongly acidic or basic. Other places on Mars have chemistry that would be hostile to life as we know it,containing molecules like perchlorates that are very reactive with organic molecules; that it; destroying them. Curiosity also found the presence of sulfur, phosphorus, and carbon, all necessary ingredients to make life as we know it.
To be clear, Curiosity did not find evidence of life! It has been looking for organic compoundsbut has not yet found them. But it did find conditions were once conducive for it. For all the details of what Curiosity found and how it found them, go read Emily Lakdawalla’s post about this on The Planetary Society Blog.
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