Rock on Mars with possible signs of life discovered

It gets more interesting every time. It turns out that the team behind the Perseverance rover a poton Mars, has put all his attention on one thing. A rock that can bear signs of past life.

Maybe the rock they named Chiava Falls had microscopic life in the past wow.

Rock with possible signs of life on Mars

On July 21, the Mars Perseverance rover collected a rock while exploring the northern edge of a valley called Neretva Valles.

It is believed that this valley was carved by water long ago, the fluid that rushed into the Jezero crater.

Analysis performed using instruments on board the rover shows that the rock has certain characteristics. “Fits the definition of a possible indicator of ancient life.“

These are chemical features and structures that likely formed billions of years ago, when the area had running water. Of course, at the moment this hypothesis is just that: a hypothesis. The team still needs to continue analyzing other possible explanations.

The truth is that while the carbon-based molecules that have been discovered are essential components of life as we know it, they can also be formed through non-biological processes.

Project scientist Ken Farley explains: This is the first convincing discovery of organic matter. They are distinctive colored spots that indicate the chemical reactions of microbes.

The problem is that they have not been able to determine exactly how the rock formed and whether nearby rocks could have heated the Chiava Falls and contributed to its properties.

For us to measure, it is a rock that measures. 1 meter by 0.6 meters and they called it the Grand Canyon Waterfall. On our planet, in the United States.

Signs of life on Mars?

Here’s the interesting thing. Large white veins of calcium sulfate run throughout the rock, and between them are bands of red material, indicating the presence of hematite, one of the minerals that makes Mars a red planet.

Now, when Perseverance took a closer look at these areas, it found dozens of them. Irregular white spots, about a millimeter in size, each surrounded by black material..Like leopard spots, then.

One of the rover’s instruments found that these dark halos contained iron and phosphate. What’s amazing is that these spots on Earth are often associated with the fossilized record of microbes.

While this alone is interesting enough, it’s not the only thing that has scientists completely baffled.

There were also millimeter-sized crystals of olivine in the rock. This is a mineral that forms from magma and could indicate that the rocks formed at a higher elevation, on the edge of the river valley. That is, they were produced by the crystallization of magma.

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