No, NASA didn’t find life on Mars, but it found reason to keep looking

Is there life on Mars?

The answer to that question is still unknown, but an announcement from NASA on Thursday suggests the planet could have supported ancient life, and the findings have people very excited. The Curiosity rover, which has been drilling into and exploring the red planet, has discovered organic molecules in sedimentary rocks.

But what does all of this mean? Here’s what we know so far.

What exactly did NASA discover?

Ever since landing on Mars in a place known as Gale Crater six years ago, the Curiosity rover has been exploring and drilling into the planet’s surface, looking for whatever it could find. Now NASA is announcing what it found: organic molecules in rocks there, including thiophenes, benzene, toluene and small carbon chains, such as propane or butene. Here’s what that means in simpler English.

“In the distant past, Mars was much warmer and wetter than it is today,” Jen Eigenbrode, NASA Goddard astrobiologist, said in a statement. “The rocks at Gale Crater tell us it was once an environment where life as we know it could have survived. The discovery of ancient organic molecules shows that another ingredient of life was present at that time and it broadens our understanding of habitability of both ancient and modern Mars.”

Here’s a further explanation about how Curiosity made the discovery.

What else has the rover found?

NASA also announced that, over the years, Curiosity has identified seasonal variations in the level of methane in the atmosphere on Mars. Specifically, low levels of methane repeatedly peak in warm, summer months and drop in the winter every year.

NASA says it isn’t ruling out that the methane has biological origins.

Curiosity has its own Twitter account, and it shared the announcement there.

So….?

Though the source of these organic molecules is unknown, they provide clues into planetary conditions and processes and encourage further research, according to NASA.

“Finding ancient organic molecules in the top five centimeters of rock that was deposited when Mars may have been habitable, bodes well for us to learn the story of organic molecules on Mars with future missions that will drill deeper,” Eigenbrode said.

Eigenbrode added in a video interview on Thursday that the discovery could have implications for human exploration and colonization of Mars if the organic molecules could serve as a resource.

“We don’t know what that would be exactly,” she said. “Perhaps there are organisms there that we don’t know about yet. They might be helpful for farming. … Organisms including plants need carbon in order to turn it into their own biomass. And perhaps there’s other ways of using it to generate fuels that people there would actually use.”

SO IS THERE LIFE ON MARS OR NOT? Not so fast, arm chair astronauts. Though NASA is showing excitement about its discoveries, NASA's exoplanet program took to Twitter to make this information a little more understandable.

The key takeaway? Organic molecules are not a clear sign of life.

Now what?

While the molecules aren’t necessarily evidence of life itself on Mars, it has NASA excited about its continued exploration of the planet.

“NASA and the European Space Agency are preparing to send the next generation of rovers to Mars in 2020, carrying new technologies to search for signs of microbial life,” Eigenbrode said.

In the meantime, researchers, analysts, scientists, NASA followers and space enthusiasts are beyond excited about this announcement.

A healthy level of skepticism was also present on social media after the announcement.

What do you think of the discovery? Read more about it here.