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Perseverance Rover Finds Complex Carbon Molecules on Bright Angel Rocks in Jezero Crater
NASA’s Perseverance rover identified large carbon compounds on spotted rocks in Jezero crater’s Bright Angel formation. The findings, published in Science Advances, add chemical detail to patterns previously noted as possible microbial traces.
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NASA’s Perseverance rover has detected large, complex carbon-containing molecules on the surface of rocks in the Bright Angel outcrop inside Jezero crater. The SHERLOC instrument identified the macromolecular carbon on marked rocks and on a separate rock about 100 metres away, @NewScientist reported.
” Perseverance entered the Bright Angel formation in 2024 near an ancient riverbed that once fed a lake.
The carbon compounds are associated with carbonate and sulphate minerals. Macromolecular carbon has not previously been observed on the surface of a rock in this manner on Mars, Kyle Uckert of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said. Its presence within mudstones at Bright Angel appears more widespread than at other sites examined in the crater.
On Earth, such compounds occur in extremely old rocks and can represent the only organic evidence of past microbial life, Ashley Murphy of the Planetary Science Institute said. The same compounds also appear in meteorites, however, and SHERLOC cannot determine their precise molecular structure. The study was published in Science Advances with the DOI 10.1126/sciadv.adx0047.
Scientists said returning samples to Earth would be required to test whether the carbon has a biological origin.
