NASA’s Perseverance rover has delivered its most striking clue in the search for life on Mars.
A rock sample collected from Mars, named “Sapphire Canyon,” that was taken from the Bright Angel formation in Jezero Crater, shows unusual mineral patterns known as “leopard spots” that may have formed through microbial activity.
While non-biological explanations are also plausible for the discovery, according to the scientists, the chemical fingerprints look strikingly similar to those left behind by microbes on Earth.
At a NASA press conference, scientists said it’s possible the minerals were produced by natural geological processes; the features could be the clearest signs of life ever found.
The mudstones, found in a dusty riverbed by NASA's Perseverance Rover, are dotted with unusual patterns, nicknamed "leopard" spots and poppy seeds.
Scientists believe these features contain minerals produced by chemical reactions that could be linked with ancient Martian microbes.
The study findings are significant enough to match NASA’s criteria for what it calls “potential biosignatures.”
According to Prof. Sanjeev Gupta, a planetary scientist from Imperial College London and one of the authors of a study that has been published in the Journal Nature, “We’ve not had something like this before, so I think that’s the big deal.”
"We have found features in the rocks that, if you saw them on Earth, could be explained by biology by microbial processes. So we’re not saying that we found life, but we’re saying that it really gives us something to chase.”
“It’s like seeing a leftover fossil. Maybe it was a leftover meal; maybe that meal’s been excreted, and that’s what we’re seeing here,” said Dr. Nicola Fox, NASA’s Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, at the press conference.
The only way available to fully substantiate the fact if the minerals were made by microbes would be to bring the rocks back to Earth for analysis.
A Mars sample return mission has been proposed by NASA and ESA, but its future remains uncertain.
However, the U.S. Space Agency’s science budget is facing cuts that were tabled in President Trump’s 2026 budget, and a sample return mission is one of the budgetary items facing cancellation.
