NASA’s Perseverance rover could have made a breakthrough in discovering whether life has ever been found on Mars.
The 1 to 0. 6 meter rock was discovered on July 22 through the rover that has been traveling the planet since its arrival on February 18, 2021.
The rock, which has since been nicknamed “Cheyava Falls” after the famous waterfall in Arizona, USA, bears a resemblance to the rest of the red rock terrain, but has one key difference that may imply that some life once existed on the planet. . Training
Through further research into the rock’s composition, it has been shown that water once flowed into it, providing abundant clues that at least at some point there may have possibly been life on the planet.
Thanks to various “problems” in the rock, researchers may stumble upon that water once flowed. David Flannery, from Queensland University of Technology in Australia, said: “These problems come as a surprise. “
Speaking about the discovery, Ken Farley, a scientist assigned to Perseverance at Caltech in Pasadena, said: “Cheyava Falls is the most enigmatic, complex and potentially potentially studied rock ever studied by Perseverance. »
He added: “On the one hand, we have our first convincing detection of biological matter, unique colored spots that indicate chemical reactions that microbial life can also use as an energy source, and transparent evidence that water, mandatory for life, once passed through rock. On the other hand, we have not been able to determine precisely how the rock formed and to what extent neighboring rocks would have possibly heated Cheyava Falls and contributed to those features.
Although scientists have their own ideals for what the specific color of rocks suggests, they have admitted that there is no way to know for sure until the samples are brought back to Earth and analyzed.
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