Overview
- NASA's Curiosity rover, in results published Tuesday in Nature Communications, found more than 20 organic molecules in clay-rich rocks at Glen Torridon in Gale Crater.
- The suite includes a nitrogen-bearing compound with a structure like DNA precursors that has not been detected on Mars before.
- Scientists also identified benzothiophene, a sulfur compound that meteorites often deliver to planets.
- The team used Curiosity's onboard lab, called SAM, with a small supply of the reagent TMAH to free and analyze organics locked in rock during a 2020 experiment.
- Researchers caution the discovery is not evidence of life and say only sample return and future missions can tell if the organics formed in ancient water or arrived on meteorites.