Life on Mars? NASA’s Strongest Clue Yet

NASA’s Perseverance rover has uncovered one of the strongest clues yet that Mars may have once harbored life.

In 2024, the rover collected a sample from Jezero Crater, a site believed to have been a lake billions of years ago. Scientists were immediately intrigued by the rock’s unusual “leopard-spotted” textures, which sparked a year-long investigation.

Tests revealed organic signatures and specific minerals, such as vivianite and greigite, that on Earth are often produced by microbial activity in ancient lakebeds. These findings led NASA’s Acting Administrator Sean Duffy to call the discovery “the clearest sign of life we have ever found on Mars,” while cautioning that non-biological chemical reactions could also explain the patterns.

The sample, nicknamed “Sapphire Canyon,” is being stored with other cores for potential return to Earth on a future mission. If confirmed, it would mark one of the most significant scientific breakthroughs of our time.