In a new study in Science Advances, an international team of researchers has reported finding organic matter on Mars. Using the NASA Perseverance rover, the team recorded a distribution of complex organic carbon within an ancient river valley on the red planet’s Jezero Crater.

Using the rover’s SHERLOC instrument, the researchers detected a complex and hardy form of organic matter called macromolecular carbon within fine-grained mudstones. According to the study paper, published in Science Advances, this is significant as it represents the most robust detection of organic material in Jezero Crater to date and is the first time such a material has been found directly on a natural rock surface on Mars.

Over the last decade, the NASA Curiosity rover has found organic molecules in Gale Crater, proving the building blocks of life could be preserved in Mars’s lakebed rocks. However, Perseverance’s previous scans of the floor of Jezero Crater only showed localised and faint hints of organic materials.

The new evidence, from the Neretva Vallis channel, suggests organic matter could be more widespread on Mars than thought. The fact that these organic materials have also been found alongside minerals like carbonates and sulphates suggests they may have been trapped and preserved by water-driven processes billions of years ago.

While the new study noted that these organics could have been formed by geological (i.e. abiotic) processes rather than biological ones, the findings are, in the paper’s words, “astrobiologically compelling”, showing that complex carbon can survive the planet’s harsh radiation for aeons.