NASA scientists examine ‘life on Mars’ as a rock from the surface contains clues about microbial life

NASA’s Mars rover might just carry with it the answers to life on the planet, both past and future.

UPDATED MAR 22, 2025

Close-up of a Dalmatian jasper stone (Representative Cover Image by fullempty / Getty Images)

Possibility of life on Mars has always intrigued scientists and space enthusiasts. For the same purpose, several missions were launched into space to gather enough evidence to settle the curiosity. The latest observation from NASA’s Perseverance rover and its scientist team focuses on an interesting rock. This sample from Mars's surface contains traces that suggests microbial life existed on the planet billions of years ago. This rock was dubbed the “Cheyava Falls” by scientists and might be the best evidence yet for past life on the planet.

This still image is part of a video taken by several cameras aboard the descent stage of NASA’s Perseverance rover as it touched down in the area known as Jezero crater on February 18, 2021 on the planet Mars. (Photo by NASA via Getty Images)

Analysis being done onboard the rover indicates that the rock contains chemical signatures. They were formed by running water in the area which indicates life billions of years ago. The area is being explored by the rover and scientists are coming up with possible explanations for these features, reported NASA. Further research is needed to confirm the presence of ancient life. This was the 22nd rock core sample, collected by the rover on July 21st, 2024, from the edge of an ancient river valley.

In this handout released by NASA, angular and smooth surface of rocks are seen in an image taken by the panoramic camera on the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit January 6, 2003. (Photo by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/ Cornell University via Getty Images)

The valley named Neretva Vallis is a quarter-mile wide and was carved by rushing water into the Jezero Crater. The rock is a fine-grained mudstone that has spots of black, blue, or greenish hues, nicknamed “poppy seeds.” There are also several dark-rimmed, millimeter-size splotches named "leopard spots." The rover’s instruments conclude that various rocks with these features are rich in iron, but their oxidation and redness vary. This was an important sign of organic matter on the surface as they may have bleached the rocks, eradicating their red color.

In this concept illustration provided by NASA, NASA's Perseverance (Mars 2020) rover uses its drill to core a rock sample and will store them in sealed tubes on the planet's surface for future missions to retrieve in the area known as Jezero crater on the planet Mars. (Photo illustration by NASA via Getty Images)

Scientists presented their discovery publicly for the first time earlier this month at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas. "On Earth, reactions like these are commonly associated with microbially-driven organic matter respiration," commented Joel Hurowitz, the deputy principal investigator of the PIXL instrument of Perseverance rover, as per Space.com. “This trip through the Neretva Vallis riverbed paid off as we found something we’ve never seen before, which will give our scientists so much to study,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Ian Jones, CEO of Goonhilly Earth Station, watches live signals arrive from NASA's Perseverance rover as it lands on the surface of Mars on February 18, 2020 on The Lizard, England. (Photo by Hugh Hastings/Getty Images).

The team also noted at the beginning that the rock had calcium sulfate veins. There is a debate as to whether the features are a result of exposure to high temperatures. This includes non-biological processes like volcanic events. However, analysis shows that the rock was never exposed to such heat or heat-related processes, causing it to recrystallize, per Space.com. "Everything seems to be consistent with low-temperature processes. The rocks that we investigated appear to fill the Neretva Vallis channel," Hurowitz added.

Waning gibbous moon and Mars top right (Photo by japatino / Getty Images)

Various scans are taken of the Cheyava Falls by the rover’s SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals) instrument. These images suggest that it contains organic compounds, like carbon-based molecules, that are building blocks of life. “Cheyava Falls is the most puzzling, complex, and potentially important rock yet investigated by Perseverance,” said Ken Farley, Perseverance project scientist of Caltech in Pasadena. With this new discovery, the research into life beyond Earth has intensified only.