NASA officials have announced that a biological sample collected by the Perseverance rover is the “clearest sign of life” to have ever been found on the Red Planet
NASA has announced it has found the clearest sign of life on Mars.
Dean Duffy, the new NASA administrator, said a sample collected by the Perseverance rover was the “clearest sign of life” on Mars. The sample, called “Sapphire Canyon,” was collected back in July last year at a site of rocky outcrops on the edges of Neretva Vallis, a river valley carved by water rushing into Jezero Crater long ago.
NASA officials shared details about the discovery on Wednesday and is the best evidence so far that Mars once harboured life. Since the rover landed on the Red Planet in 2021, it has explored the Jezero Crater, in Mars’ northern hemisphere that was once home to an ancient lake.
The “precious” samples were extracted from what was once a river delta. of the 43 tubes that were taken to Mars, 38 were for collecting samples with another five being “witness tubes” that are designed to document the cleanliness of its sampling system throughout the mission.
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