Space & Astronomy

NASA's Curiosity rover discovers ancient 'organic matter' on Mars

By T.K. Randall
April 21, 2026 ·  3 comments

Image: Curiosity Rover
Credit: (PD) NASA/JPL-Caltech via Wikimedia Commons Although we don't hear about it as much these days, the hunt for evidence of life on Mars continues unabated, with both of NASA's exploratory rovers scouring the Martian surface for clues pointing to the existence of primitive organisms that might have lived there in the planet's distant past.

Now, the Curiosity rover has discovered what appear to be organic molecules on Mars, some of which having never been found on the Red Planet before.

Despite the fact that it is not possible to determine if these molecules are actually traces of ancient Martian life, the find is particularly exciting because it shows that some of the building blocks of life were on Mars 3.5 billion years ago and that traces of them have been preserved all that time.

This means that if there really was life on the Red Planet in its distant past, traces of that could be preserved as well."We think we're looking at organic matter that's been preserved on Mars for 3.5 billion years," said mission scientist and University of Florida astrogeologist Prof Amy Williams.

"Is it life? We can't tell, based on this information."

"For a long time, we thought that all organic matter was going to be seriously degraded by that harsh radiation environment."

"It's really exciting to see [that] large complex material can survive in the subsurface environment."


Source: The Guardian | Comments (3)

Tags: Mars