As humans, we don’t even understand the planet that we are on. We understand even less about the planets that surround us. NASA says that Mars’ Perseverance rover may have found evidence of ancient microbial life.
This sample will need further study, but there is the possibility that this “biosignature is a substance or structure that might have a biological origin,” NASA reports. It could potentially prove or disprove the existence of life (as we know it) on Mars.
The sample was collected by the Perseverance from an ancient riverbed in Jezero Crater found in the Bright Angel formation. In this creator there is the Cheyava Falls rock that has been of interest to researchers given its spotted appearance. “The spots on the rock could have been left behind by microbial life if it had used the raw ingredients, the organic carbon, sulfur, and phosphorus, in the rock as an energy source.”
Potential Biosignatures
The sample taken from Cheyava Falls was deemed Sapphire Canyon, and contains “potential biosignatures.” These biosignatures are substances or structures that may have a biological origin. Which could indicate if life has ever existed on Mars.
“This finding by Perseverance, launched under President Trump in his first term, is the closest we have ever come to discovering life on Mars. The identification of a potential biosignature on the Red Planet is a groundbreaking discovery, and one that will advance our understanding of Mars,” says Sean Duffy, NASA Administrator. “NASA’s commitment to conducting Gold Standard Science will continue as we pursue our goal of putting American boots on Mars’ rocky soil.”
“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’s Washington Headquarters. “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.”
What Did Perseverance Find?
Specifically, the Perseverance found sedimentary rocks in the area that are composed of clay and silt. On Earth, these naturally occurring compounds do an excellent job of preserving past microbial life. They contain other organic matter like carbon, sulfur, oxidized iron (rust), and phosphorus, as well.
“The combination of chemical compounds we found in the Bright Angel formation could have been a rich source of energy for microbial metabolisms,” said Joel Hurowitz of Stony Brook University and lead author of the paper. “But just because we saw all these compelling chemical signatures in the data didn’t mean we had a potential biosignature. We needed to analyze what that data could mean.”
Sapphire Canyon is just one of 27 rock cores that the Perseverance has collected in the area since February 2021. So who knows that the other samples may trun up when studied against it.
“Astrobiological claims, particularly those related to the potential discovery of past extraterrestrial life, require extraordinary evidence,” said Katie Stack Morgan, Perseverance’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “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.”
Below you can check out an artsit rendering of what the water flow on Mars may have looked like:
