Martian rock contains 'clearest sign' yet of ancient life on Mars, NASA says

Source: CNN

Scientists believe intriguing leopard spots on a rock sampled by the Perseverance rover on Mars last year may have potentially been made by ancient life, NASA announced Wednesday. The team has also published a peer-reviewed paper in the journal Nature about the new analysis, though they say further study is needed. “After a year of review, they have come back and they said, listen, we can’t find another explanation,” said Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy. “So this very well could be the clearest sign of life that we’ve ever found on Mars, which is incredibly exciting.”

The sample, called Sapphire Canyon, was collected by the Perseverance rover from rocky outcrops on the edges of the Neretva Vallis river valley, a region sculpted by water that once flowed into Jezero Crater more than 3 billion years ago. The rover landed within the crater to explore the ancient lake site in February 2021, seeking rocks created or modified by water on Mars in the past. Perseverance drilled the Sapphire Canyon sample from an arrowhead-shaped rock called Cheyava Falls in July 2024.

Although the sample is safely ensconced in a tube millions of miles away on Mars, scientists have remained intrigued by the rock because of its potential to reveal whether microscopic life ever existed on Mars. “The discovery of a potential biosignature, or a feature or signature that could be consistent with biological processes, but that requires further work and study to confirm a biological origin is something that we’re sharing with you all today that grows from years of hard work, dedication and collaboration between over 1,000 scientists and engineers here at the (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory and our partner institutions around the country and internationally,” said Katie Stack Morgan, Perseverance project scientist at JPL, during a news conference Wednesday.

Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/10/science/nasa-mars-sapphire-falls-rock-sample