Scientists now believe this sample might contain evidence of ancient microbial life, according to a new study published in Nature.
Credit- NASA
A big discovery by NASA’s Perseverance rover could bring us closer to answering whether life ever existed on Mars. The rover collected a rock sample called “Sapphire Canyon” last year from an ancient dry riverbed in Jezero Crater.
The rock, named “Cheyava Falls,” was found in July 2024 while Perseverance explored a region called the Bright Angel formation, part of an old river valley carved by water billions of years ago. Instruments on the rover detected clay, silt, organic carbon, sulfur, and phosphorus in the rock materials that, on Earth, help preserve signs of past life.
The most intriguing part was the discovery of colourful leopard spots on the rock. These spots contain minerals like vivianite (hydrated iron phosphate) and greigite (iron sulfide), which on Earth can be linked to microbial activity.
Scientists think these minerals could have formed through chemical reactions involving ancient microbes using the rock’s ingredients as energy.
“This finding is the direct result of NASA’s effort to strategically plan, develop, and execute a mission able to deliver exactly this type of science, the identification of a potential biosignature on Mars,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “With the publication of this peer-reviewed result, NASA makes this data available to the wider science community for further study to confirm or refute its biological potential.”
Katie Stack Morgan, Perseverance project scientist, emphasized the importance of peer review in ensuring the discovery’s credibility. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” she said. “Getting such a significant finding as a potential biosignature on Mars into a peer-reviewed publication is a crucial step in the scientific process because it ensures the rigor, validity, and significance of our results. And while abiotic explanations for what we see at Bright Angel are less likely given the paper’s findings, we cannot rule them out,” she added.
This surprising find came from some of the youngest sedimentary rocks the rover has studied, challenging the idea that signs of life would only be in the oldest Martian rocks. The discovery opens up exciting possibilities that Mars might have been habitable later than previously believed.
Perseverance continues its mission in Jezero Crater, collecting more samples and data to help solve one of humanity’s greatest questions: Are we alone in the universe?