After 5 Years and 28 Miles on Mars, NASA's Perseverance Rover Is Still Searching for Clues to Ancient Life

The discovery, published in Nature in 2025, electrified the scientific community on Earth, including experts on the rover’s science team. Still, although NASA administrators called the findings “incredibly exciting,” more research is needed, according to study co-author Melissa Rice, a member of the Perseverance team, long-term planner of the rover’s mission, and professor of planetary science at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.

“As exciting and surprising as these findings were, it’s still not incontrovertible evidence of life,” Rice told Discover.

Although the molecules Perseverance found strongly point to the possibility of ancient microbial life on Mars, they could also have formed by non-biological means.

“We need to know more. Much more,” Rice said. “And the best way we can determine if these samples are actual biosignatures is to get the rocks back to Earth.”