Curiosity rover finds largest carbon chains on Mars from 3.7 billion-year-old rock

NASA's Curiosity rover took this selfie while inside Mars' Gale crater on June 15, 2018, which was the 2,082nd Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission.

The longest molecules ever found on Mars have been unearthed by NASA's Curiosity rover, and they could mean the planet is strewn with evidence for ancient life.

Molecule chains containing up to twelve carbon atoms linked together were detected in a 3.7 billion-year-old rock sample collected from a dried-up Martian lakebed named Yellowknife Bay, according to a study published March 24 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.