If signs of life really do exist on Mars, there's a chance the Perseverance rover has already rolled over them.

If Mars is anything like Earth, such a long-lived aqueous environment would be an ideal place for microbial life to form.

Already, Percy has drilled and captured several sediment samples from this very region. Its inventory is 60 percent full.

Some of the rocks and dust Percy has collected even show intriguing signs of organic compounds. But until a mission is sent to collect the fruits of the rover’s labor, it’s impossible to say if these compounds come from biological or geological sources.

  • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    9 months ago

    We’ve only very recently been able to detect the chemical signatures of exoplanets at all, so we really haven’t been ‘seeing’ anything when it comes to signs of life before now.

    If you’re talking about intelligent life that comes to us, then that’s another thing. We all know the various theories when it comes to why that hasn’t happened. But in addition, space is mind-blowing big.