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NASA recently announced that its Perseverance rover has uncovered the clearest evidence yet of ancient life on Mars. The discovery concerns a reddish rock sample named Sapphire Canyon collected in July 2024 from Neretva Vallis, an ancient river valley that once emptied into Jezero Crater over 3 billion years ago. The Sapphire Canyon sample, which was taken from the youngest sedimentary rocks that the mission has studied, contravenes an earlier hypothesis that ancient life on Mars would be confined to older rock formations.
Since landing on Mars in 2021, Perseverance has been exploring the 50-kilometer-wide Jezero Crater by collecting rock samples and loose material called regolith. To date, the six-wheeled rover has collected 30 samples on Mars, analyzing them for signs of life with various onboard instruments.
Upon discovering the Sapphire Canyon sample, initial scans by Perseverance's Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) and Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) instruments detected nodules of carbon-based molecules and hematite featuring spots of iron and phosphate. NASA scientists believe that these textural features on the Sapphire Canyon sample, which they nicknamed "leopard spots" and "poppy seeds", supported microbial life.
While the leopard spots and poppy seeds are not direct evidence of life, the team of NASA scientists published a new study on September 10, 2025, in the journal Nature describing additional rock samples found at two nearby sites that support its case for ancient life on Mars.
Further analysis of the Sapphire Canyon sample, which is now in a sealed tube carried by Perseverance, is needed to confirm or disprove these biosignatures. Since remote analysis of the Sapphire Canyon sample is limited, the NASA researchers are prioritizing its return to Earth in a potential mission called the Mars Sample Return.
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