A new study of carbon-based molecules in a Martian rock offers new hints about the possibility that the red planet once hosted life.
The researchers considered a range of possible processes that could have produced the molecules they found. They argue that high concentrations of large organic (carbon-based) compounds found in the rock cannot be fully explained by the non-biological processes they examined.
The team members say it is therefore possible that the organics were produced by living organisms. It is also feasible that molecules made by hydrothermal processes – where water is heated to high temperatures underground – also contributed to the organics found in the rock.
