NASA's Mars rover finds rocks hinting at potential signs of ancient life

Cape Canaveral, US: Scientists said on Wednesday that NASA's Mars rover Perseverance had discovered rocks in a dry river channel that might contain evidence of ancient microscopic life.

They emphasised that before drawing any conclusions, a thorough analysis of the sample collected there by Perseverance is required, ideally in labs on Earth.

Roaming Mars since 2021, the rover cannot directly detect life. Instead, it carries a drill to penetrate rocks and tubes to hold the samples gathered from places judged most suitable for hosting life billions of years ago.

The samples are awaiting retrieval to Earth — an ambitious plan that's on hold as NASA seeks cheaper, quicker options.

Calling it an “exciting discovery,” a pair of scientists who were not involved in the study — SETI Institute's Janice Bishop and the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Mario Parente — were quick to point out that non-biological processes could be responsible.

“That's part of the reason why we can't go so far as to say, A-ha, this is proof positive of life,” lead researcher Joel Hurowitz of Stony Brook University told The Associated Press. “All we can say is one of the possible explanations is microbial life, but there could be other ways to make this set of features that we see.”

With PTI inputs