In July 2024, NASA’s Perseverance rover extracted a rock core from the edge of Neretva Vallis, a river valley cut into the Martian surface by water rushing into the Jezero Crater billions of years ago. This mysterious rock caught the attention of scientists on Earth, as its features may reveal clues about possible ancient life on the Red Planet.
At 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday, September 10, NASA will host a press conference to discuss the analysis of the sample, dubbed “Sapphire Canyon,” and the subject of a forthcoming study. Participants include Sean Duffy, acting NASA administrator; Nicky Fox, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate; Lindsay Hays, senior scientist for Mars Exploration; Katie Stack Morgan, Perseverance project scientist; and Joel Hurowitz, a planetary scientist at Stony Brook University.
NASA will livestream the event on its YouTube channel, and you can watch it right here at the stream provided below. You can also watch the livestream through the NASA app, available for both iOS and Android.
What is “Sapphire Canyon”?
NASA believes the ancient lake delta in Jezero Crater is the best place for Perseverance to hunt for signs of past microbial life. Since arriving in this 28-mile-wide (45-kilometer-wide) impact crater in February 2021, the rover has gathered 30 samples of rock and regolith for a potential return to Earth.
The Sapphire Canyon sample was the 25th collected by Perseverance. The arrowhead-shaped specimen, extracted from a vein-filled rock named “Cheyava Falls,” features a striking pattern. Tiny black spots that NASA scientists call “poppy seeds” are interspersed among larger “leopard” spots, potentially indicating past chemical reactions that could have provided an energy source for microbes.
Perseverance also took multiple scans of Cheyava Falls with its SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals) instrument. This indicated that the rock contains organic compounds—the building blocks of life. While it’s possible that these compounds formed through non-biological processes, their presence alongside Cheyava’s spots suggests this rock contains a potential biosignature.
What to expect from tomorrow’s event
NASA has not revealed any details about the forthcoming study’s findings, but the fact that the agency is holding a press conference to announce them suggests they’re a big deal.
Perseverance is equipped with a suite of instruments capable of detailed chemical, mineralogical, and imaging analysis. It’s possible that analyzing the rover’s data on Cheyava Falls and the Sapphire Canyon sample revealed more evidence for potential biosignatures. It’s also possible that the analysis pointed to alternative, geological explanations for the rock’s strange features.
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