A Mars rover found organic carbon just sitting on a rock
SMRTR summary
Tucked inside an ancient, dried-up river on Mars, NASA's Perseverance rover has found something that scientists can't quite explain away.
The rover detected complex organic carbon in and on rocks at a site called Bright Angel, inside Jezero crater. Reported this week in Science Advances, one detection marks the first time such carbon was found on the surface of a rock Perseverance hadn't drilled into.
The organics were found at the same location as last year's discovery of striking "leopard spots," whose mineral rims resembled features on Earth linked to ancient microbial life.
But the big question remains unanswered. Planetary scientist Paul Byrne puts it plainly: the carbon "could be from meteorites or cosmic dust; abiological processes like hydrothermal reactions; or they could be biological in nature."
To know for certain, the samples need to come home. Perseverance has 30 cached samples ready for return, but budget cuts have complicated that mission.
SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to Science News.
Read the original article