Overview
- Curiosity’s onboard lab, using a TMAH wet-chemistry cup, identified 21 carbon-bearing molecules in the Mary Anning 3 drill sample from Gale Crater, with seven never before seen on Mars.
- The compounds appeared only when the reagent was added and not in a heat-only run, which shows they were locked inside a larger organic matrix in the rock.
- The suite includes a nitrogen heterocycle linked to DNA and RNA precursors along with benzothiophene, naphthalene, and methylated aromatics recovered from 3.5‑billion‑year‑old lakebed clays.
- Scientists say the find strengthens evidence for past habitability but stops short of biology because the rover cannot measure chirality or carbon isotope ratios needed to test origins.
- Lab runs of the same chemistry on the Murchison meteorite produced many of the same species, and ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover with the MOMA instrument is slated to probe chirality on future Mars samples.