NASA’s famous Mars rover Perseverance, which landed on the red planet back in 2021, has been quiet for a long time—but now the indestructible robot is making new headlines. According to NASA, the rover may have found a potential biosignature, which could be evidence of life.
Perseverance made the decisive discovery back in July 2024, when the Mars rover drove through a dried-up 400-meter-wide riverbed called Neretva Vallis in the Jezero Crater (which is 28 miles across). Water flowing into the Jezero Crater formed this riverbed billions of years ago.
Perseverance finds potential proof of life
The robot discovered a reddish rock that astronomers have christened “Cheyava Falls,” which measures 1 meter by 0.6 meters and contains tiny structures. Perseverance took a sample of the rock, which is called “Sapphire Canyon”—and after a year of investigation, scientists found the best evidence to date of ancient microbial life processes.
NASA explains in the announcement that a “potential biosignature” is a “a substance or structure that might have a biological origin but requires more data or further study before a conclusion can be reached about the absence or presence of life.”
The tiny clues, which look like “leopard spots” on the rock, could have been left by microbial life that utilized the organic carbon, sulfur, and phosphorus in the rock as a source of energy.
According to NASA, the stains bear the signature of two iron-rich minerals: vivianite (hydrated iron phosphate) and greigite (iron sulfide). Vivianite is often found on Earth in sediments, peat bogs, and in the vicinity of decaying organic matter, NASA explains. Certain forms of microbial life on Earth can also produce greigite.
But definitive proof is still missing
The combination of chemical compounds found by the researchers could have been a rich source of energy for microbial metabolic processes. However, it doesn’t prove that it’s an actual biosignature.
In fact, the researchers themselves state that the minerals can also be formed without the presence of life. For example, through sustained high temperatures, acidic conditions, and binding by organic compounds. However, the researchers have so far found no evidence that the minerals were exposed to high temperatures or acidic conditions.
Now other scientists are to investigate this discovery and help confirm or disprove it. Ideally, the sample in question would be brought to Earth and analyzed hands-on—so far, all of the analysis has been carried out by the Mars rover’s own instruments. Transport to Earth is planned in principle, but the expensive costs are preventing a rapid realization.
Also exciting is the fact that this discovery was made in younger sedimentary rock. An earlier hypothesis assumed that traces of ancient life would be limited to older rock formations, but this new finding indicates that Mars may have been inhabitable for longer or later in its history than previously assumed—if the biosignature is confirmed as such.
This article originally appeared on our sister publication PC-WELT and was translated and localized from German.
