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.
Scientist Joel Hurowitz revealed how these tiny signatures found in the crater pointed to the existence of life on Mars billions of years ago.
Although the findings have been being talked about for months, Hurowitz noted that scientists needed to gather more data from Neretva Vallis and confirm the results with other researchers before coming to the conclusion that this could be Martian life.
‘We are here to say this is exciting and we want to share that news. This could be very real,’ Duffy continued.
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 NASA robot has been beaming back images to Earth since 2021, 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 new 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, just like scientific studies in all fields, that proved the samples likely had a biological origin.
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.
‘We’re going back to the moon,’ the administrator declared.
Duffy added that ‘about a year and a half’ after the Artemis II mission, Artemis III will land and establish a ‘long term presence of life on the moon led by America.’
