A possible sign that life could have existed more than 3 billion years ago is that NASA's Perseverance rover has amassed almost half of its planned rock collection. These are compounds that contain carbon and are important to life.
The Perseverance project scientist at Caltech said today at a press conference that they have found rocks that may have been deposited by life. The crater was chosen as the landing spot by the Perseverance team. It appears to be the site of an ancient river delta, which is a convenient location for microorganisms to have arisen and evolved long ago.
It is possible to make organic molecule through a natural process. The rover can't say their origin on its own. A sample return mission is being planned by NASA and the European Space Agency to pick up rocks from the region and send them back to Earth.
The Perseverance team believes that the rover will have a long life like its predecessor. NASA has five rovers that will be deployed to the Red Planet. The plan is to have Perseverance deliver the team's favorite rock samples to a new lander equipped with a small rocket, which will then fly them to Earth. The team will launch the landers from Earth to Mars in two years. In 2033, the rock samples will be transported to Utah.
NASA also has a plan. If something happens to Percy over the next few years, the rover will put some samples in a safe place where they can be easily retrieved. The cache should not be damaged by marsquakes because there is hardly any weather on the planet. The Ingenuity craft built by Perseverance could be used to retrieve samples from that mission.
Mars is not a good place to live. The planet is a wasteland because it has very little atmosphere left. It could have been a much more hospitable place billions of years ago, if it had been more like today. It's the closest world to Earth that could have been inhabited by humans.
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