The rover discovered four rocks that contain organic molecules, although it can only be confirmed on its return to Earth.
the rover Perseverance reached a major milestone in its search for traces of life on Mars. The robot sent by the NASA found rocks that contain organic molecules and that, according to experts, could be “a possible way of life”, something that must be confirmed on his return to Earth before 2033.
“Now we know that the rover is in the right place,” NASA Administrator for Science Thomas Zurbuchen told a news conference organized by the US space agency and broadcast live.
The samples They contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. And they are the first Martian rocks rich in organic molecules.
This is not yet proof that life once existed on the red planet, but it is best chance so far to one day be able to detect with certainty possible ancient microbial life.
A biological signature may have been produced by the presence of life, but also by an inert process. To consider this biosignature definitive, the samples must be analyzed by powerful laboratory instruments on Earth.
“We don’t know yet the significance of these finds, but these rocks are exactly what we came for,” said Ken Farley, mission science lead.
The last four rocks collected by Perseverance as of July 7 they are sedimentarydifferent from the igneous ones that started accumulating elsewhere in Jezero Crater about a year ago.
Rocks mainly include carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, but also nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur: such molecules can be produced by chemical processes that do not involve the presence of life.
Two cuts were taken by drilling into a rock named “Wildcat ridge”, of approximately one meter and located in a delta that was formed about 3,500 million years ago at the intersection between a river and an ancient lake.
It is particularly interesting as it is a sedimentary rock that appears to have been formed at the time the water in the lake evaporated.
“Wildcat ridge” also has “great biosignature conservation potential,” said Shuster, an expert at the University of California, Berkeley.
To analyze them, the Sherloc instrument, equipped with the Watson camera, was involved, and the research group in charge of studying the data are Italians who work for the Arcetri Observatory of the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF).
It is almost certain that the answer about the nature of these molecules will only be available when the rocks reach Earth thanks to the relay of the MSR mission, which according to Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary sciences division, could begin as early as 2027. and 2028, while the first samples could reach our planet in 2033.