Overview

• A peer-reviewed Nature paper details organic carbon with iron-rich minerals—vivianite and greigite—arranged in distinctive “poppy seed” and “leopard spot” textures in a mudstone core drilled in July 2024.
• The core, nicknamed Sapphire Canyon, was extracted from Cheyava Falls in the Bright Angel/Neretva Vallis region that once fed Jezero Crater’s ancient lake, a setting dated to roughly 3.2–3.8 billion years ago.
• On Earth, similar mineral patterns often form through microbial metabolisms in low-oxygen sediments, though the authors note abiotic processes remain viable explanations with current data.
• NASA officials called the result the closest indication yet of ancient Martian life while underscoring it is only a “potential biosignature” and not a confirmed detection.
• Perseverance has cached about 27–30 samples for eventual study on Earth, but the Mars Sample Return campaign faces funding and schedule uncertainty as NASA assesses retrieval options.