Curiosity rover's findings on Mars' organic molecules offer tantalizing clues in the search for life on the planet
Over nearly six years roaming the surface of Mars, NASA's Curiosity rover has detected organic molecules that offer a taste of what an ancient life-friendly red planet might have looked like. Now, the rover's pulled together a veritable feast.
The discovery of a wide variety of organic molecules and the detection of a seasonal methane pattern - described in two separate studies in the journal Science - add new fuel to the search for past life on Mars, scientists said.
"Both these finding(s) are breakthroughs in astrobiology," Inge Loes ten Kate of Utrecht University, who was not involved in either study, wrote in
