NASA has announced the discovery of what it believes to be ancient microbial life on the Martian surface.
The new administrator for the space agency, Sean Duffy, said a sample collected by the Perseverance rover has been declared the ‘clearest sign of life’ ever found on the Red Planet.
In a Wednesday news conference, NASA’s Associate Administrator Nick Fox said: ‘This is the kind of signature that we would see that was made by something biological.’
Specifically, researchers have been looking at unusual spots and seed-like shapes in ancient Martian rocks that might point to the existence of tiny life forms in the distant past.
These features, nicknamed ‘poppy seeds’ and ‘leopard spots,’ were spotted in mud-like rocks in Neretva Vallis, part of the Jezero Crater where a river existed billions of years ago.
The rover has been exploring this region since landing on Mars in 2021.
Scientist Joel Hurowitz revealed how these tiny signatures found in the crater pointed to the existence of life on Mars billions of years ago.
The rover’s tools detected chemicals like iron and phosphorus in these spots, which can form when tiny microbes break down organic material, a sign of life here on Earth.
The rover has been beaming back images to Earth for years, revealing crystalline solids left over from water flowing on the surface and a reddish area that contained organic compounds and an energy source for what could have been microbial life.
Perseverance collected the life-proving rocks on July 21, 2024 while exploring the northern edge of Neretva Vallis, the ancient river valley formed roughly 3.7 billion years ago.
Scientists noticed the vein-like structures throughout, finding they were white calcium sulfate.
The crystalline solids on the Martian surface are hard-water deposits left behind by ancient groundwater flowing through the now dusty landscape.
Between those veins were bands of material with a reddish color suggesting the presence of hematite, one of the minerals that gives Mars its distinctive rusty hue.
Duffy noted that the announcement Wednesday was the culmination of 30 years of research on the Red Planet.
He added that the latest findings went through a peer-review process that proved the samples likely had a biological origin.
‘We are here to say this is exciting and we want to share that news. This could be very real,’ Duffy continued.
When asked if NASA plans to retrieve the potential organic samples from Mars, Duffy said the space agency was still looking at how and when they could get the rocks back to Earth, adding that ‘we’re going to look at our budgets.’
The new administrator appointed by President Trump noted that ‘the president loves space’ and believed NASA has the money to complete its mission, which is now focused on manned missions to space.
Duffy noted the space agency’s mission was going to be ‘a little more focused’ but felt comfortable asking the White House for more funding if it was needed to confirm the findings on Mars.
‘At no point has this administration said “we don’t care about samples,”‘ Fox added while addressing question about NASA’s changing priorities regarding Mars exploration.
Previously, the Trump Administration had cut the Mars sample retrieval mission from its budget proposal for NASA.
It was part of $6 billion that had been slashed from NASA’s future budget in the May proposal to Congress, even though the ongoing sample study had already cost billions.
Duffy said that NASA was now looking at a faster and more cost-effective way of getting the Perseverance’s samples back for examination.
As for NASA’s upcoming space missions, Duffy revealed that four astronauts will circle the moon ‘early next year’ as part of the Artemis II lunar mission.
