Mariella Moon has been a night editor for Engadget since 2013, covering everything from consumer technology and video games to strange little robots that could operate on the human body from the inside one day. She has a special affinity for space, its technologies and its mysteries, though, and has interviewed astronauts for Engadget.
NASA 's Perseverance rover has been collecting samples from Mars since 2021, but one of its most recently collected rocks could help it achieve its goal of finding evidence of ancient life on the planet. Nicknamed Cheyava Falls after the tallest waterfall in the Grand Canyon, the 3.2 feet by 2 feet sample contains "chemical signatures and structures" that could've been
Perseverance collected the rock on July 21 from what was once a Martian river valley carved by flowing water long ago. The sample, which you can see in close up below and from afar at the center of the image above, exhibits large white calcium sulfate veins running along its length. They indicate that water did run through the rock at one point.
More importantly, it contains millimeter-size marks that look like "leopard spots" all over its central reddish band. On our planet, those spots could form on sedimentary terrestrial rocks when there are chemical reactions that turn hematite, one of the minerals responsible for Mars' reddish color, to white. Those reactions can release iron and phosphate, which could've served as an energy source for microbes.
The rover's Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry tool already determined that the black rings around the spots contain iron and phosphate. However, that doesn't automatically mean that the rock truly did serve as a host for ancient microbes.The spots could've been formed by non-biological processes, and that's something scientists will have to figure out.
Ancient Microbes Perseverance Rover Cheyava Falls NASA Leopard Spots Mars Mars Sample Return Mission Terrestrial Rocks
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