The Perseverance rover has reached a major milestone in its search for traces of life on Mars. The robot sent by NASA found rocks that contain organic molecules and that, according to experts, might be “a possible form of life”, something that must be confirmed on its return to Earth before 2033.
“Now we know that the rover is in the right place,” NASA Administrator for Science Thomas Zurbuchen said at a news conference organized by the US space agency and broadcast live.
The samples contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. And they are the first Martian rocks rich in organic molecules.
This is not yet proof that life once existed on the red planet, but it is the best chance so far of being able to one day detect possible ancient microbial life with certainty.
A biosignature may have been produced by the presence of life, but also by a nonliving process. To consider this biosignature definitive, the samples must be analyzed by powerful laboratory instruments on Earth.
The last four rocks collected by Perseverance as of July 7 are sedimentary, different from the igneous rocks that began to accumulate elsewhere in Jezero Crater regarding a year ago.
Rocks include mainly carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, but also nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur: Molecules of that type can be produced by chemical processes that do not involve the presence of life.
Two cuts were taken by drilling into a rock called “Wildcat ridge”, approximately one meter in size and located in a delta that formed regarding 3.5 billion years ago at the intersection between a river and an ancient lake.
It is particularly interesting as it is a sedimentary rock that appears to have been formed at the time the water in the lake evaporated.
Source: Clarin