Anonymousabout 2 hours ago
NASA's Curiosity rover identified 21 organic molecules — seven never before seen on Mars — in a 3.5-billion-year-old rock from Gale Crater's ancient lakebed, using a wet chemistry technique performed for the first time on another planet. The findings, published in Nature Communications on April 21, 2026, include a nitrogen heterocycle structurally related to DNA precursors and benzothiophene, a sulfur-bearing compound common in meteorites, but scientists stress that the molecules' origin — biological, geological, or extraterrestrial delivery — remains undetermined.