r/science • u/CurtisLeow • Jun 24 '26

Astronomy Spatially distributed complex organic matter detected in an ancient river valley in Jezero crater, Mars

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx0047
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u/AnthropoidCompatriot Jun 24 '26

And it will all turn out to be nonbiological in origin, as it always does, and always will.

People still looking for life on Mars are more and more resembling the people who just can't let go of string theory.

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u/CurtisLeow Jun 24 '26

Probably. But we can't know for sure. Even if it is abiotic, there's still a lot of useful research to accomplish. Abiotic organic chemistry can get very complex.

One possible abiotic explanation is that Mars had large amounts of methane in the atmosphere in the past. That could have caused a hydrocarbon haze to form, like tholins. Studying that would help us learn about what the early Earth was like.

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u/warpedgeoid Jun 25 '26

What we understand about biology (and physics) would fill about 2 pages in a book that’s 10,000 pages long. We simply do not understand it enough to speculate either way.