Return mission is key to confirming whether we once had neighbours in our solar system
Leopard spots on a reddish rock nicknamed ‘Cheyava Falls’ in Mars’ Jezero Crater discovered by Nasa’s Perseverance rover in July 2024. Photo: Nasa/via AP
On Wednesday, Nasa announced that the Perseverance rover had identified potential biosignatures – signs of ancient life – on Mars.
These signs are in the form of tiny circular marks, nicknamed “leopard spots”, on the surface of a 3.5 billion-year-old mudstone that are reminiscent of traces left behind by microbial life on Earth.