NASA says rock sample from Mars has potential 'biosignature' of life

A rock sample collected by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover may contain evidence of ancient microbial life, preserved for billions of years on the Red Planet

A rock sample collected by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover may contain evidence of ancient microbial life, preserved for billions of years on the Red Planet.

The potential “biosignature” is not direct evidence of life itself, but rather a possible sign that textural features on the rock may have biological origins.

“This finding by our incredible Perseverance rover is the closest we’ve actually come to discovering ancient life on Mars,” Nicky Fox, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said Wednesday at a news briefing.

The possibility that Mars once played host to living organisms has been a long-standing debate among scientists and a prime focus for NASA as part of broader efforts to understand the origin of life and whether humanity is alone in the universe.

The sample, taken from a rock known as Cheyava Falls, was collected in July 2024 while Perseverance explored an ancient dry riverbed in Jezero Crater, a 28-mile-wide basin north of the Martian equator.