Data from NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover have revealed that rocks in the Jezero crater contain organic carbon-bearing mudstones, according to a new study published in Nature. The research, led by Joel Hurowitz, associate professor in the Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook University, examines geological samples collected since the rover landed on Mars in 2021.
The Perseverance rover investigated mudstone outcrops known as the Bright Angel formation along the western edge of Jezero crater. Analysis conducted by the Mars 2020 science team identified traces of carbon matter and minerals such as ferrous iron phosphate and iron sulfide within these rocks.
Researchers emphasize that while these findings represent potential biosignatures—features that could have been formed by past biological activity—they do not claim to have discovered fossilized life on Mars. The team notes that such features might also arise from non-biological processes.
“These mudstones provide information about Mars’ surface environmental conditions at a time hundreds of millions of years after the planet formed, and thus they can be seen as a great record of the planetary environment and habitability during that period,” said Hurowitz, who has worked with Mars rover missions since his graduate studies at Stony Brook University in 2004.
“We will need to conduct broader research into both living and non-living processes that will help us to better understand the conditions under which the collection of minerals and organic phases in the Bright Angel formation were formed,” he added.
The researchers state that further analysis using advanced instrumentation on Earth will be necessary to determine whether microbial activity played a role in forming these mineral and organic features. They conclude: “analysis of the core sample collected from this unit using high-sensitivity instrumentation on Earth will enable the measurements required to determine the origin of the minerals, organics and textures it contains.”
