It's been on Mars for 18 months, so just what has the Perseverance rover been up to? Here's a look.
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. A few of the recently collected samples include organic matter, indicating that Jezero Crater, which likely once held a lake and the delta that emptied into it, had potentially habitable environments 3.5 billion years ago.
Not all organic molecules require life to form because some can be created through chemical processes. “While the detection of this class of organics alone does not mean that life was definitively there, this set of observations does start to look like some things that we’ve seen here on Earth,” Sharma said. “To put it simply, if this is a treasure hunt for potential signs of life on another planet, organic matter is a clue.
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