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To be clear, NASA is not claiming to have found life on Mars: Rather, its Perseverance rover has excavated rock samples with properties that could be from ancient microbial activity, the space agency announced on Thursday.
“This is exactly the kind of sample we were hoping to find,” Katie Stack Morgan, the Perseverance mission’s chief scientist, told Business Insider.
Three key features could suggest the existence of extraterrestrial life
“Cheyaba Falls” (left) shows the dark hole where NASA’s Perseverance rover took its core sample. The white area just next to the hole is where the rover cut into the rock to study its composition. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
Nicknamed “Cheyaba Falls,” this rock formation has three significant features.
- First, the white veins of calcium sulfate are clear evidence that water once flowed there.
- Second, the rock tested positive for organic compounds, the carbon-based building blocks of life as we know it.
- Third, it is dotted with tiny “leopard spots” that indicate chemical reactions associated with microbial life on Earth.
A reddish Martian rock nicknamed “Cheyava Falls” has leopard-print spots that suggest ancient microbial life. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
However, both organic matter and leopard spots could have resulted from non-biological processes. Scientists will need to study the samples more closely on Earth to know for sure.
The rover has reached the limits of what it can learn about rocks.
“We’re not saying there is life on Mars, but we’re seeing things that suggest possible signatures of life,” Stack Morgan said.
A biosignature is a characteristic that indicates the presence of life.
“This is a very important finding,” she added.
It’s a much-needed win for the space agency, which has suffered a series of blows in recent months from budget constraints and technical errors during missions.
NASA needs this win.
Earlier this year, NASA’s first failed attempt to land on the Moon again since 1972: the NASA-funded Peregrine lunar exploration mission by Astrobotic suffered a fuel leak shortly after launch and burned up in Earth’s atmosphere on its return to Earth. (The next attempt, a mission by Intuitive Machines, also funded by NASA, successfully landed on the Moon.)
Then came new budget decisions: NASA’s fiscal year 2025 budget proposal effectively cuts funding for the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which remains a very productive and functional mission.
And just Last week, NASA officials announced that they would be scrapping the VIPER lunar rover, which the agency has already spent $450 million to build. NASA plans to dismantle the vehicle and reuse some of its parts for future missions to the moon.
Meanwhile, two astronauts have been trapped on the International Space Station for 51 days after a helium leak and thruster failure occurred in a Boeing spacecraft that was funded by NASA to deliver the space station.
Perseverance was no exception: In April, NASA announced it was canceling an $11 billion plan to retrieve the rover’s tube full of Martian rocks and return them to Earth, which would have allowed scientists to retrieve rock samples from Cheyaba Falls.
Instead, NASA Calling on companies to intervene Then they propose their own cheaper and faster version of the mission.
That’s not a lightsaber, but a sample tube from Perseverance hidden on the surface of Mars. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Rocks of Cheyava Falls especially Additional study is required.
“This rock is one of the most complex rocks ever seen on the surface of Mars. There’s a lot going on in this rock,” Stack Morgan said.
IIs it an alien? Check the CoLD scale
For now, this discovery is only a “first step” on the seven-point “Confidence in Life Detection” (CoLD) scale.
The CoLD scale is a rough assessment of the scientific confidence in the likelihood of discovering extraterrestrial life.
The CoLD (Confidence in Life Detection) scale helps scientists study whether a signal suggests life. NASA/Aaron Gronstall
“We’ve gotten to the beginning of that scale, and I think that’s what rovers were sent to Mars for,” Stack Morgan said.
As evidence mounts, the confidence of a possible biological feature can rise to a higher level. For example, if scientists can confirm that the leopard spots were not created by known non-biological processes, the Cheyaba Falls rocks could rise to stage two or three.
But first the samples need to be transported back to Earth, and NASA has to figure out how to do that.
“We hope that these latest samples will help inform the debate about whether this effort is worthwhile,” Stack Morgan said, “and we believe it is.”