NASA has announced the first detection of possible biosignatures in a rock on the surface of Mars. The rock contains the first martian organic matter to be decisively detected by the Perseverance rover, as well as curious discoloured spots that could indicate the past activity of microorganisms. These look like the “reduction spots”, also called “leopard spots”, commonly seen in …
Understanding how life began is one of the most profound areas of science. Charles Darwin, the British naturalist, thought that life began in "some little warm pond" filled with inorganic chemicals that became complex organic chemicals or molecules. Holler's aim in a study published in the journal PNASwas to understand the stage just before life began, when inorganic chemical structures …
CNN — After years of designing, building, planning and testing, the NASA Perseverance rover’s launch readiness review has concluded, and it’s a go for launch on July 30. “These two new capabilities will allow us to investigate a postage stamp-size area for elemental chemistry and organic molecules,” said Ken Farley, Perseverance’s project scientist at the California Institute of Technology. Compared …
