Mars rover finds possible signs of ancient Red Planet life

These tiny ‘leopard spots’, discovered in a rock on Mars by NASA’s Perseverance rover, could be possible signs of microbes that once lived on the red planet. “On Earth, these types of features in rocks are often associated with the fossilised record of microbes living in the subsurface,” says astrobiologist and Perseverance team member David Flannery. Without returning a rock sample to Earth, it will be difficult to further investigate the spots’ origin. “We have zapped that rock with lasers and X-rays and imaged it literally day and night from just about every angle imaginable,” says the rover’s project scientist Ken Farley. “Scientifically, Perseverance has nothing more to give.”