The Curiosity rover has uncovered the most diverse array of organic molecules ever found on Mars, including seven that had never been detected before on the red planet.These carbon-containing compounds are the same building blocks that enabled life to emerge on Earth.The results, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, came from a first-of-its-kind experiment on Mars: The rover collected a rock sample and dissolved it in a chemical solution to unlock the secrets of its composition.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe research team believes the organic molecules identified in the rock have been preserved on Mars for 3.5 billion years, said lead study author Dr. Amy Williams, associate professor of geological sciences at the University of Florida and a scientist on the Curiosity mission.“These findings are important because they confirm that larger complex organic matter is preserved on Mars over geologic time periods, despite the harsh radiation environment,” Williams said. “This supports the search for habitable environments on Mars, which is defined as a place where life would have wanted to live if it was present.”The outcome complements Curiosity’s previous detections of organic compounds and adds support to the idea that Mars was likely once a habitable planet billions of years ago, as opposed to the frozen desert it is today.“The revelation of the mission to me has been not just that Mars was habitable,” said study coauthor Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “It’s just how amazingly habitable it was.”AdvertisementAdvertisementThe milestone wet chemistry experiment was not designed to distinguish whether the molecules act as signs of ancient life on Mars, whether the molecules were delivered to the red planet by meteorite impacts or if the organic material was simply the result of geologic processes.But the findings highlight a rallying point for many planetary scientists. To determine definitively whether life ever existed on Mars, rock samples need to be returned to Earth.Seeking the perfect targetCuriosity’s Mastcam captures this mosaic in 2019 of a region on Mount Sharp with many clay-bearing rocks. – JPL-Caltech/MSSS/NASAThe Curiosity rover landed in Gale Crater on Mars in 2012 with the goal of determining whether the planet were ever habitable. For years, the rover ascended a feature called Mount Sharp withi …
