Could Mars have hosted microbes? NASA’s Perseverance finds promising clues

Picture a world where millions of years back, microorganisms could have existed in rivers and lakes but now there are only rocks and dust left. That is precisely what Perseverance rover by NASA is probing on Mars.

NASA Scientists recently announced that a sample from an ancient riverbed in Jezero Crater could hold secrets pointing towards microbial life that existed long ago.

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The rock in question, which was named Cheyava Falls, provided a core sample that was dubbed Sapphire Canyon. NASA scientists say that it has chemical patterns and mineral structures that are potential biosignatures. Even more importantly, they might be evidence of life that requires further analysis to determine if they actually originate from living life or not.

Perseverance, which touched down on Mars in February 2021, is one of NASA’s Mars 2020 missions. The primary objective of its mission is to search for evidence of past microbial life and to obtain rock and soil samples that might one day be returned to Earth.

The rover has already retrieved 27 such samples from Jezero Crater.

Perseverance’s tools told them that they are sedimentary rocks with significant clay and silt content. Such materials on Earth record signs of microbial life. Such rocks also had organic carbon, sulfur, oxidized iron (rust), and phosphorus. And we know, these are vital ingredients for life.

Study lead author Joel Hurowitz, a Stony Brook University scientist, described it this way: “The mixture of chemical compounds that we found in the Bright Angel formation was potentially a rich source of energy for microbial metabolisms. But seeing these chemicals in isolation wasn’t sufficient. We needed to study how they were organized in the rock, and whether they were a possible biosignature.”

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However, scientists caution that these minerals can also form without life through non-biological processes. Factors like high heat, acidic conditions, or chemical binding by organic compounds can generate similar patterns.

Yet the rocks at Bright Angel do not show evidence of extreme heat or acidity, leaving the biological explanation as a strong possibility. But it’s not a certainty.

One thrilling part of this finding is that the rocks are comparatively young sedimentary rocks. Earlier expectations were that evidence for ancient life would be detectable only in much older rocks.

The new evidence suggests that Mars might have been habitable later in its evolution than previously envisioned.

The rover itself is controlled by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which built and designed it under the Mars Exploration Program.

The operations team, which is headed by Caltech, makes sure that Perseverance keeps on exploring, examining, and sending back vital information regarding Mars’ history and possibility for life.

The find at Cheyava Falls is not a definite evidence of life. But it is a significant milestone in Mars exploration. Each sample Perseverance brings scientists closer to responding to one of humanity’s oldest questions: Are we alone in this universe?

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