That doesn’t imply Cheyava Falls is a particular signal of life. But it surely was sufficient to make Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, who’s at present serving as Performing Administrator of NASA, name the invention “the closest we’ve got ever come to discovering [ancient] life on Mars.”
The discovering marks a giant step ahead in a prolonged course of, one that might probably finish within the discovery that life has existed past Earth — and that it’s common sufficient to have inhabited our neighboring planet.
What Perseverance noticed
On July 21, 2024, NASA’s Perseverance rover noticed an odd rock partially buried in a dry riverbed. White streaks hinted water as soon as flowed by way of the stone, and Perseverance additionally discovered indicators of natural molecules, the constructing blocks of life. However what actually stood out was a smattering of darkish and brilliant spots alongside the rock’s floor. On Earth, such “leopard spots” are primarily identified to type in two methods: from microbes, or by way of chemical reactions that may present gas for all times.
Scientists had been intrigued. Even when Cheyava Falls wasn’t marked by life, it was nonetheless the primary single place on Mars to indicate indicators of as soon as internet hosting all three of life’s most important elements: liquid water, natural molecules, and an vitality supply. Billions of years in the past, this rock might have met all of the situations life must thrive.
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