{"id":322925,"date":"2026-04-22T20:34:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T15:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=322925"},"modified":"2026-04-22T20:34:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T15:04:55","slug":"nasa-finds-3500000000-years-old-chemicals-on-mars-crucial-for-origin-of-life-news-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/04\/22\/nasa-finds-3500000000-years-old-chemicals-on-mars-crucial-for-origin-of-life-news-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Nasa finds 3,500,000,000 years old chemicals on Mars crucial for origin of life | News World"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2018Is it life?\u2019 \u2013 scientists are uncertain what the Curiosity rover found (Picture: via REUTERS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Humankind has come one step closer to finding proof of life on Mars.<\/p>\n

Nasa detected organic molecules on Mars, including chemicals widely considered constructing blocks for the origin of life on Earth.<\/p>\n

The space agency\u2019s rover Curiosity has been scouring Mars ever because it landed on the Red Planet in 2012.<\/p>\n

It was within the Gale crater \u2013 where scientists consider conditions for supporting ancient life were favourable \u2013 that the robot discovered five latest molecules.<\/p>\n

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Nasa\u2019s Curiosity rover found the brand new molecules within the Gale crater(Picture: @NASAMars)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The chemicals within the clay-rich sandstone are much like the raw material that helped spur the event of life on Earth.<\/p>\n

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Nevertheless, the evaluation performed by Curiosity cannot establish whether the organic compounds are linked to ancient life on Mars or non-biological processes, resembling meteorites.<\/p>\n

The experiment lead, Prof Amy Williams, an astrogeologist on the University of Florida, said: \u2018We expect we\u2019re organic matter that\u2019s been preserved on Mars for 3.5bn years.<\/p>\n

\u2018Is it life? We will\u2019t tell, based on this information.<\/p>\n

The 21 molecules discovered in total have survived hostile conditions on Earth\u2019s neighbour planet.<\/p>\n

Temperatures drop below -100C at night and the planet is blasted by radiation from the sun.<\/p>\n

Williams said: \u2018For a very long time, we thought that each one organic matter was going to be seriously degraded by that harsh radiation environment. It\u2019s really exciting to see [that] large complex material can survive within the subsurface environment.\u2019<\/p>\n

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The planet Mars is shown on this NASA Hubble Space Telescope view taken May 12, 2016 (Picture: REUTERS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The rover\u2019s discoveries were confirmed with other instruments aboard the robot.<\/p>\n

Its evaluation recently detected compounds, including carbon which can be linked to life.<\/p>\n

The experiment also hinted on the presence of one other compound that has a structure much like the early types of DNA.<\/p>\n

\u2018There are several steps between what we found and DNA,\u201d Williams said. \u2018It is unquestionably a constructing block to how DNA is made now. However it is actually just the bricks, not the home. You may generate these molecules geologically.\u2019<\/p>\n

The scientists consider the observations from Curiosity could tie into discoveries from Nasa\u2019s other on-duty Mars rover, Perseverance.<\/p>\n

The European Space Agency\u2019s Rosalind Franklin mission, which is scheduled to launch in 2028, will drill to a depth of two metres and find a way to perform more sophisticated tests on the compounds it finds.<\/p>\n

Get in contact with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

For more stories like this, <\/strong>check our news page<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Arrow<\/title>\n<\/use><\/svg>MORE: Supermassive black holes in a \u2018death spiral\u2019 could collide \u2013 what impact will it have on Earth?<\/span><\/p>\n

Arrow<\/title>\n<\/use><\/svg>MORE: The way to see the Lyrid meteor shower within the UK because it peaks today<\/span><\/p>\n

Arrow<\/title>\n<\/use><\/svg>MORE: Great white sharks could also be \u2018cooked alive\u2019 by warming oceans<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2018Is it life?\u2019 \u2013 scientists are uncertain what the Curiosity rover found (Picture: via REUTERS) Humankind has come one step closer to finding proof of life on Mars. Nasa detected organic molecules on Mars, including chemicals widely considered constructing blocks for the origin of life on Earth. The space agency\u2019s rover Curiosity has been scouring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":322926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20691],"tags":[6183,1920,1217,1000,1220,18410,395,3981,813,1303],"class_list":["post-322925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-chemicals","tag-crucial","tag-finds","tag-life","tag-mars","tag-nasa","tag-news","tag-origin","tag-world","tag-years"],"aioseo_notices":[{"message":"The permalink for this post just changed! This could result in 404 errors for your site visitors.","status":"warning","options":{"id":"0a2ae5f84bc2c0423042ed7ec22d2e40","isDismissible":true,"actions":[{"url":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/wp-admin\/admin.php?page=aioseo-redirects","label":"Add Redirect to improve SEO","class":"aioseo-redirects-slug-changed"}]},"allowedContexts":["posts"]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322925"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322928,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322925\/revisions\/322928"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}