The NASA Mars rover examined a rock containing organic compounds and “leopard spots” that, on Earth, are associated with microbial life.
“We’re not able to say that this is a sign of life,” says Perseverance deputy project scientist Katie Stack Morgan of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif. “But this is the most compelling sample we’ve found yet.”
The rover drilled up the sample on July 21 from a reddish rock, dubbed Cheyava Falls after a feature at the Grand Canyon. It is the first piece of Mars that Perseverance has examined that contains organic molecules, the building blocks of life, project scientist Ken Farley of Caltech reported July 25 at theAdding to the excitement, the reddish rock is speckled with little white spots with black rims. “They look like a tricolored leopard spot,” Stack Morgan says.
Perseverance examined the spots with instruments that can identify their chemical contents and found that the rims contain iron phosphate molecules. On Earth, rings with similar texture and chemistry are associated withlife, of course, and that’s an important caveat,” Stack Morgan says. “But based on our experience with similar things on Earth, there is a possibility that life could have been involved, and these could have a biological origin.
NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance has been exploring an ancient river delta that once flowed into Jezero Crater, where it discovered a rock that has NASA buzzing. The rock lies in the area slightly right of center in this image, about 110 meters from the rover.The rock has other confusing features that muddy the picture of how it formed, Stack Morgan says. It is shot through with white veins of calcium sulfate.
The only way to find out for sure is to bring the rock home. A big part of Perseverance’s mission is to collect samples from interesting rocks for a future spacecraft to return to Earth, where they can be studied in more sophisticated laboratories than a rover can carry on its back. Perseverance has thrown everything it has at this rock already, Stack Morgan says.
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