NASA researchers have made an important discovery on Mars.
After the Perseverance rover retrieved several samples of organic matter from a former river delta on Mars.
The rover looks for evidence of early life on Mars.
The US space agency is preparing a future mission to bring back the first fragments of Mars to Earth by retrieving samples obtained by the rover.
At a press conference, Perseverance Project scientist Ken Farley said the rocks he studied in the delta had the highest organic matter content.
This is unlike anything found on previous missions.
He goes on to say that the fact that organic matter can be found in rocks deposited in habitable,, environments such as ,,lakes is of particular interest because organic molecules are the basis of life.
The Mars rover collected a total of 12 samples after he collected four samples in a delta that was once thought to have been an ocean floor.
This fan-shaped delta formed at the confluence of lakes and rivers on Mars about 3.5 billion years ago.
It is located in Jezero Crater, where NASA's rover landed.
The Perseverance rover is currently studying delta river sedimentary rocks.
These rocks, like rocks on Earth, formed when the area was once covered with water, carrying numerous particles of varying sizes and eventually settling.
The floor of Jezero Crater was explored during the rover's first scientific campaign and found igneous rock formed either from magma or as a byproduct of surface volcanic activity.
NASA is currently investigating the river delta where it found organic matter.
The discovery was made in an area where silt and salt accumulated in lakes billions of years ago, but both the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers had previously discovered this type of material.
According to researchers, these deposits formed in an environment that could have supported the existence of life