An exciting discovery on Mars is being overshadowed by turmoil at NASA, with budget cuts threatening to destroy a scientific legacy that has been built over decades.
Yesterday, the agency shared a finding, published in Nature, of potential biosignatures identified by the Mars Perseverance rover in a 3.5 billion-year-old rock.
“This very well could be the clearest sign of life that we’ve ever found on Mars,” said Transportation Secretary and Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy in a press conference.
Leftover fossils
Scientists involved in the research were careful to emphasize that the findings — related to unusual textural features of rocks sampled in the Neretva Vallis region in Mars’ Jezero crater — are a possible, but certainly not definitive, indicator that microbial life could have existed on Mars billions of years ago.
The features observed in the rock on Mars, nicknamed “poppy seeds” and “leopard spots” due to their appearance as black dots and ring shapes with dark rims, are typically seen on Earth as the result of microbial life. But there could be other, non-biological explanations for how these features were formed.
“This is the kind of signature that we would see, that was made by something biological,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “In this case, it’s kind of the equivalent of seeing leftover fossils.”
Draconian cuts at NASA
The announcement, while certainly intriguing, comes at a troubled time for NASA. These findings were initially announced in July 2024 and have been going through the usual slow and steady process of scientific peer review. For the agency to hold a press conference to reiterate findings that have already been announced is somewhat unusual — and, a cynic may argue, an attempt to divert criticism away from the issues currently roiling the agency.
Donald Trump’s administration continues to push for enormous cuts to NASA’s budget, including a 47 percent cut to the overall space science budget; termination of two supporting Mars missions, the MAVEN and Mars Odyssey orbiters; pulling out of a joint project with Europe’s space agency to look for further evidence of biosignatures on Mars; and slashing the Perseverance budget by nearly a quarter.
... continue reading