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Xinhua News Agency, Los Angeles, July 26 (Xinhua) -- NASA's official website recently announced that the U.S. Mars rover "Perseverance" recently collected a unique red rock core sample with "leopard prints" near the Jezero Crater on Mars. The scientific team's preliminary analysis believes that this "leopard print" may indicate that microorganisms existed on Mars in ancient times.

On the 21st of this month, the Perseverance rover collected this arrow-shaped rock core while exploring the northern edge of the Neretva Valley on Mars. It is the 22nd rock core sample collected by the Perseverance rover and was named "Cheyava Falls" by the scientific team. The Neretva Valley is an ancient river valley that was formed long ago by water flowing into the Jezero Crater.

The sample is about 1 meter long and 0.6 meters wide, with white calcium sulfate veins running vertically, and red bands between the veins indicate the presence of hematite. Hematite is one of the minerals that give Mars its unique rust color. The instruments on board Perseverance found dozens of irregular gray-white spots of millimeter size in these red areas, with black halos around the spots, forming a "leopard print" pattern. Analysis by the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Rock Chemistry (PIXL) on Perseverance confirmed that these black halos contain iron and phosphate.

According to members of the scientific team, on Earth, these spots on rocks are usually related to underground microbial fossil records. Hematite contained in terrestrial sedimentary rocks participates in chemical reactions, causing white spots to appear on red rocks. The iron and phosphates released by the reaction form black halos around the white spots, forming "leopard-like" spots. This reaction can serve as an energy source for a class of microorganisms that rely on chemical energy. The appearance of the above features on rocks indicates that they may be related to microorganisms.

The scientific team is still considering other possible causes of the spots, but to reach a definitive conclusion, rock samples will need to be brought back to Earth and studied using laboratory instruments.

The "Perseverance" was launched on July 30, 2020, and landed on Mars on February 18, 2021. Its mission objectives include searching for signs of life that may have existed on Mars in ancient times. NASA originally planned to launch a "sample retrieval lander" in 2028 to return Martian samples to Earth in the early 1930s, but an assessment report showed that the original mission design budget was too high and the return time would be greatly delayed. In April this year, NASA said it would temporarily shelve the Mars sample return project until a suitable solution was found. (End)