Perseverance Finds Probable Evidence of Life on Mars

Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Wikimedia Commons

Perseverance explores the rocky surface of Mars searching for new, groundbreaking evidence.

Since February 2021, the Mars rover, Perseverance, has been exploring an area of Mars called the Jezero Crater which is most likely home to an old Martian lake. On Sept. 10,2025 scientists published findings regarding rock samples obtained in 2024 by the rover. Since landing, Perseverance has crossed the crater and explored an ancient river delta in search of microfossils and samples scientists intend to send back to Earth.

In June 2024, according to an article in the New Yorker, Perseverance found a rock cluster that contained mostly mudstones, which are generally formed from sediment in slow-moving water. Scientists took interest in an arrowhead-shaped stone, called Cheyava Falls (named for one of the Grand Canyon’s waterfalls) and drilled out a sample of it, which they dubbed Sapphire Canyon, in order to return it to earth. Cheyava Falls was found to have peculiar spots, consistently referred to as ‘leopard’ print on its reddish surface, as well as black markings that they call ‘poppy seeds’.

The CNN article continues, over 3.5 billion years ago, this area of Mars was thought to have been filled with rivers flowing into the lake. When they eventually dried, the crater basin was preserved, leaving behind an outcrop called Bright Angel, the site of the Cheyava Falls rock. According to Kaitie Stack Morgan of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the environment could have been habitable at one point.  

According to Ashley Strickland, when NASA initially shared this discovery in 2024, the Perseverance team said it was exactly what they were hoping to find. The rover was able to determine that Bright Angel is full of oxidized iron, phosphorus, sulfur, and carbon.

This combination of carbon-based elements provides a source for microbes to feed on. Due to the potential presence of hematite between the calcium sulfate bands in the rock, some of the scientists hypothesize that the rock’s spotting is potentially from chemical reactions between the hematite and calcium sulfate, which can release iron and phosphate. These kinds of reactions can provide microbes with a source of energy.

Furthering that hypothesis, greigite and vivianite were found on the rock. Lead scientist Joel Hurowitz said, “On Earth, reactions like these, which combine organic matter and chemical compounds in mud to form new minerals like vivianite and greigite, are often driven by the activity of microbes…We think what we've found is evidence for a set of chemical reactions that took place in the mud that was deposited at the bottom of a lake - and those chemical reactions seem to have taken place between the mud itself and organic matter - and those two ingredients reacted to form new minerals…what’s exciting about these finds, this sort of combination of mud and organic matter that has reacted to produce these minerals and these textures, is that when we see features like this are often the byproduct of microbial metabolisms that are consuming organic matter and making these minerals as a result of those reactions.”

According to Katie Stack Morgan and Micheal Tice, these minerals could not be produced without the presence of life, unless the conditions were acidic or had wildly high temperatures. This area indicates that neither of those things happened, pointing to a potential biosignature. Tice said, “All the ways we have of examining these rocks on the rover suggest that they were never heated in a way that could produce the leopard spots and poppy seeds…If that’s the case, we have to seriously consider the possibility that they were made by creatures like bacteria living in the mud in a Martian Lake more than three billion years ago.”

On Earth, a rock like this would be assumed biological, since its geochemistry is so similar to things indicated by living organisms. The problem is that, on Mars, claiming that life existed requires sure and convincing evidence. One must be absolutely certain that the geochemistry doesn’t just look like life, but is life, and therefore NASA must be careful to correctly interpret their results.

So far, the sample is still in the process of analysis before anything can be fully confirmed. According to Joel Hurowitz “What we need to do from here is to continue to do additional research in laboratory settings here on Earth and ultimately bring the sample from this rock back home to Earth, so that we can make the final determination for what process actually gave rise to these fantastic textures.”

Though scientists are anxious to get their hands on this and other samples, the cuts from President Trump’s 2026 budget that NASA is facing essentially halves their allotted spending for science and science programs. This budget proposal would also cancel the mission to return the samples from Mars to Earth.

Casey Dreier, the Chief of Space Policy says, “NASA just found potential signatures of life, and the official plan is to walk away from it. This is the exciting part of NASA, discoveries like this are why we do this and highlight what we could be giving up. I hope some people get inspired.” NASA’s administrator, Sean Duffy, says he’s looking into getting the samples back quickly, through budgets and timing and technology.

During the press conference on Wednesday, Nicky Fox, the associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate said that this discovery marks us being “a step closer to answering humanity’s, one of their most profound questions, and that is, are we truly alone in the universe?”