There Nasa He announced that the analysis of a rock taken from the Rover Perseverance on Mars revealed the presence of potential signs of ancient microbial life. The communication, which took place by videoconference on the afternoon of Wednesday 10 September, concerns a rock sample of 6.2 cm in height, the “Sapphire Canyon“O saffiro canyon, taken from the red planet on July 21, 2024 on the edge of a river valley (Valle della Neretva), and which contains potential “biophmes”that is, substances or structures that could have a biological origin, but which require more data or further studies before a conclusion on the actual presence or not of life forms can be reached.
Precisely for this reason, the champions must be brought back to Earth in order to be analyzed better. In the meantime, new exploration missions have already been announced to the red planet.
NASA scholars then specified that it is “a signature, a sign left, it is not a form of life in itself: for this reason it has been defined as an ancient life form, since it could go back to millions of years ago”, defining the results as “The closer thing to discover life on Mars».
THE’Analysis of Martian rocks It is among the objectives of the Rover successfully landed on the planet on February 18, 2021, together with evaluation of the presence of life forms of the past – Astrobiology – and to provide Environmental information for future human missions Thanks to the meteorological station it has. Since it is in the discovery of Mars, Perseverances, he has collected 30 champions in the field of campaign Mars Sample Return In collaboration with ESA (European Space Agency) and the “Sapphire Canyon” taken from the rock “Cheyava Falls” is the 25th collected in the mission. This rock was considered immediately important to understand if Mars hosted life forms in the past. Further updates will follow on NASA’s discovery and future missions on the red planet.
