NASA’s Perseverance rover has been collecting samples from Mars since 2021, but one of its latest collected rocks could help it reach its goal of finding evidence of ancient life on the planet. Cheyawa Falls, nicknamed after the Grand Canyon’s tallest waterfall, has “chemical signatures and structures” in the 3.2-foot-by-2-foot sample. formed by ancient microbial life billions of years ago.
Stubborn collected the rock on July 21 from a valley carved by water that once flowed from the Martian River Valley. The specimen in the center of the image above, which can be seen close-up below and in the distance, exhibits large white calcium sulfate veins running along its length. They show the water flowing through the rock at one point.
More importantly, the central reddish band contains millimeter-sized markings that look like “leopard spots.” On our planet, these spots can form in sedimentary rocks during chemical reactions that turn hematite, one of the minerals responsible for Mars’ red color, white. These reactions can release iron and phosphate, which can be an energy source for microbes.
The rover’s Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) instrument has already detected iron and phosphate in the black rings around the spots. However, this does not automatically mean that the rock is host to truly ancient microbes.
The spots could have been caused by non-biological processes, and that’s something scientists will have to figure out. “We can’t say we’ve discovered life on Mars right now,” said Katie Stack Morgan, deputy project scientist. he said. “But what we are saying is that we have a potential biosignature, a set of properties that may be biological in origin, but require further investigation and more information.”
NASA still has to return samples collected by Perseverance to our planet, including Cheyava Falls. whom The New York Times notes, Mars Sample Return mission is years behind schedule and won’t be able to return rocks from the red planet until the 2040s, rather than the early 2030s as originally planned. Recently, NASA aerospace companies asked They will fund their research later this year for alternative solutions for getting samples back to Earth more quickly. Scientists will also need to conduct extensive tests to rule out contamination and non-biological processes, as well as other possible explanations for how the leopard spots formed, before they can declare that they are indeed evidence of ancient Martian life.
