Overview
- The peer-reviewed study, published Tuesday in Nature Communications, reports nickel reaching 1.1 percent by weight in 32 of 134 targets analyzed in Neretva Vallis using Perseverance’s infrared and X-ray spectrometers.
- Nickel occurs alongside iron-sulfide minerals and organic carbon at the Bright Angel outcrop, a pairing that on Earth forms in low-oxygen settings shaped by water moving through sediments.
- The authors say these signals strengthen evidence for past habitability rather than prove life, noting that nickel is used by enzymes in some ancient microbes and appears to have been bioavailable in these rocks.
- The team proposes a plausible source for the metal, suggesting a meteorite delivered nickel that later dissolved and spread through the sediments as water flowed.
- The paper urges returning the collected rock to Earth for lab tests that could separate biological from nonbiological origins, and The Register reports Congress approved canceling NASA’s Mars Sample Return in January, complicating that goal.