Life on Mars? Nasa publishes details

Pasadena

The Mars rover "Perseverance" has found the clearest evidence yet of life on Mars during its mission in space. This was announced by the mission leaders of the U.S. space agency Nasa in Pasadena, California. The findings of the "Perseverance" are spectacular, according to an official statement.

Concretely it concerns finds in the so-called Jezero crater, a former lake, into which once a large river delta flowed. However, this is already more than 3.5 billion years ago, meanwhile the crater has dried up completely. The rocks collected by the Mars rover contained organic material that provides evidence of life on Mars.

Mars: Nasa discovers evidence of life through "Perseverance"

"The rocks found in the river delta of Jezero Crater contain as high a concentration of organic material as we've ever seen on this mission," said Ken Farley, a scientist with the "Perseverance" project at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Jezero Crater is 45 kilometers wide overall and fan-shaped. It is of particular interest to Nasa researchers because the sedimentary rock in the crater could provide information about the history of the planet Mars. The "Perseverance" would also have discovered volcanic rock on the floor of the crater, which speaks for a distant eruption in the vicinity of the crater.

The scientists named the stone, which contains particularly much organic material, "Wildcat Ridge", because it has a similar form like the back of a cat. The material found consists mainly of hydrogen and carbon. Two elements that occur in almost all organic processes.

Nasa: Mars rover makes significant finds in volcanic crater

"Although the finds do not in themselves mean that life definitely existed on Mars, the samples found have strong parallels to samples we know from Earth," Nasa scientist Farley continued. They are on a "treasure hunt," he said, and finding organic material is particularly significant.

In addition, he said, the samples found would have been discovered in sedimentary rock. "Similar rock layers are known on Earth to preserve fossils. So we see this as another indication that life may have existed on Mars," Farley further explained.

More precise conclusions, however, could only be made when the fossils were examined on Earth. The Mars Sample Return mission is to bring the samples back to Earth. However, it is not planned until the 2030s.