A ‘potential biosignature’ on Mars has an uncertain future
NASA's Perseverance rover has collected a potential biosignature sample on Mars, but the future of the Mars Sample Return program remains uncertain. NASA canceled the original mission plan due to high costs and is currently seeking more affordable alternatives.
Why it matters
The discovery of potential life evidence on Mars is a major scientific milestone, but the cancellation of the return mission highlights the challenges of funding deep-space exploration.
A leopard-spotted rock that could prove whether life ever existed beyond Earth is sitting in a tube on Mars. NASA’s Perseverance rover grabbed up the sample, called Sapphire Canyon, from rocky outcrops on the edges of the Neretva Vallis, a valley sculpted by rivers that once flowed into an ancient lake in Jezero Crater more than 3 billion years ago. The rover landed at the dried lakebed in February 2021 for expressly this purpose, hunting for rocks created or modified by water in the past, which would have had the best chance of preserving evidence of life. Members of the Perseverance science team have said the Sapphire Canyon sample, about the size of a chalk stick, is exactly the type of rock they hoped the rover would discover.
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