- - NASA Mars rover finds new clues pointing to past life on Mars

Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY February 17, 2026 at 7:17 AM

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Scientists may be one step closer in their hunt for signs of past life on Mars after the Curiosity rover's latest find.

Nearly a year ago, the car-sized robot – one of two NASA rovers roaming the red planet – came across an intriguing rock sample that contained some interesting features. On the rock, Curiosity's instruments detected organic compounds that on Earth are most often produced by living things.

Though geological processes can also make the material present, researchers concluded in a study published Feb. 4 in the journal Astrobiology that such non-biological processes could not be the only factor. The discovery widens the door for the possibility that life once existed on Mars, though the scientists stopped short of definitively making that claim.

1 / 132025 spaceflight in photos. See images of Blue Origin, SpaceX missionsFirefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander captures its shadow on the moon's surface after completing a successful landing March 2 near a volcanic feature on the moon called Mons Latreille. The vehicle became the first of two landers manufactured by a U.S. company to reach the moon is 2025 in crucial missions to lay the groundwork for NASA to return humans to the lunar surface in the years ahead.

Here's everything to know about Curiosity and the latest discovery made from its observations.

What is NASA's Curiosity rover?

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is seen at the site from which it reached down to drill into a rock target called 'Buckskin' on lower Mount Sharp in this low-angle self-portrait taken August 5, 2015 and released August 19, 2015. The selfie combines several component images taken by Curiosity's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).

NASA's Curiosity rover, along with Perseverance, is one of the agency's two car-sized robots exploring the Martian surface for signs that the planet was once habitable.

Scientists believe the geology of Mars may hold valuable clues about past ancient life, and so the robotic vehicles, controlled remotely from Earth, have slowly navigated the rocky terrain to scoop up and collect intriguing samples.

The Curiosity rover began its voyage to Mars in November 2011, landing in August 2012 in the Gale Crater on the boundary between Mars' cratered southern highlands and its smooth, northern plains. While exploring the crater, believed to have formed 3.7 billion years ago, Curiosity has collected 42 powderized rock samples with the drill on the end of its robotic arm.

Mars rover finds organics believed to be fatty acids

In March 2025, scientists reported identifying trace amounts of three different organic materials – decane, undecane and dodecane – in a rock sample analyzed using Curiosity's onboard scientific instruments.

The organic compounds, the largest ever found on Mars, were believed to be fragments of fatty acids preserved in ancient mudstone in the Gale Crater, according to NASA. On Earth, fatty acids are a key signifier of life, being most often produced by living organisms.

1 / 112025 was a year of cosmic discoveries. Here's a look back at 6NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope last observed come 3I/ATLAS on Nov. 30, about four months after Hubble's first look at the interstellar comet. 3I/ATLAS became one of the biggest cosmic stories of the year when astronomers deemed it to be the third-ever discovered interstellar object in our solar system originating from an entirely different part of the galaxy.Living organisms could have formed molecules on Martian rock

Because Curiosity's observations alone couldn't allow scientists to conclude that the molecules were made by living things, the researchers conducted a follow-up study of their own.

The key question on their minds was whether any non-biological sources – such as a meteorite smashing into the Martian surface – could account for the existence of the fatty acids.

To answer the mystery, the scientists conducted radiation experiments and mathematical modeling to effectively look back in time – 80 million years to be exact. That's how long it would have been that the rock samples bearing the organic compounds would have been exposed on Mars, and how long any organic material would have been present before being destroyed by exposure to cosmic radiation.

In the study, the team determined that non-biological sources could indeed "not fully explain the abundance of organic compounds," NASA said in a February blog post announcing the findings. For that reason, they concluded that it's possible that living organisms could have formed the fatty acids.

But they stopped short of saying it was definitive proof that life once existed on Mars, saying more study is needed to understand the process by which organic molecules break down on the planet.

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at [email protected]

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NASA's Curiosity rover helps find possible signs of Mars life

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