Ancient organisms may have left microscopic “biosignatures” on Mars. That’s according to NASA scientists, who say a rock sample offers the most concrete proof yet that the red planet once hosted life.
A long time ago, life left microscopic signatures on Mars — or did it? That’s the question NASA scientists have worked for years to answer. On Wednesday, NASA researchers said the answer might be in a rock sample that “contains potential biosignatures.”
The finding, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, puts the agency one step closer to answering one of humanity’s most profound questions about life in the universe, said Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s science mission directorate.
“This finding by our incredible Perseverance rover is the closest we’ve actually come to discovering ancient life on Mars. And if you can’t tell, we’re really excited about that”, Fox said during a news conference at NASA’s headquarters in Washington.
The exciting rock sample in question is dubbed Sapphire Canyon. NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover collected it last summer from a reddish, vein-filled rock along the edge of an ancient, quarter-mile wide river valley known as Neretva Vallis.
The valley was carved by water flowing into the large Jezero Crater, which also held a lake billions of years ago.
“Jezero was selected because it’s in a location amongst the most ancient terrains on Mars, exposing some of the oldest rocks anywhere in the solar system”, said Katie Stack Morgan, Perseverance project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
“These really ancient rocks provide us a window into a period of time that’s not particularly well represented on our own planet Earth”, she added.
