It seems like humanity still hasn’t given up hope of finding life on mars even after decades of searching. Mars has always been that alluring place for the hunt for extraterrestrial life.

Maybe it’s because we think once there was an ocean that covered as much as 19% of the planet or that there was flowing water on Mars, or maybe it’s the influence of them Hollywood movies, but Mars has always seemed like “the” place to go.

Anyways, we have sent lots of space probes, landers and rovers on Mars missions and they have greatly increased our insights about the planet. In fact, as we speak, another lander named InSight, is making its way to the red planet to dig deeper (literally) to find more answers.

But even before it reaches there, we have some pretty good news, and it comes from the Curiosity rover that has been roaming the planet since 2012. Results from two studies on the inner workings of Mars show that there is ancient organic matter on the planet and the reason for the seasonal nature of Methane on the planet.

Seasonal Methane: A Sign of Active Life?

Methane is a simple organic molecule and down here on Earth, 95% of all Methane is created by living organisms. The presence of methane on Mars and that too a seasonal one, where it comes and goes during the year, led scientists to speculate whether it was due to active microbial life.

However, NASA scientists soon discovered, thanks to data from Curiosity, that the Methane spikes during the year was likely due to the melting of methane ice and not present day microbial life.

But, scientists are also mulling over the possibility that this methane could have been made by ancient living organisms living on the planet. The next finding might suggest that there might have been such organisms in the martian environment billions of years ago.

Ancient Organic Matter Detected

Though it’s not the first time that Curiosity has detected organic matter on the planet; it did so back in 2014 as well, this one is important because of where it was detected.

This subsequent detection was done in the middle of the Gale Crater on Mars and it comes from rocks that are estimated to be three billion years old. This, coupled with the fact that scientists believe there was once a huge lake in Gale Crater, kind of points towards the presence of life there, some billions of years ago.

It is exciting that some billion years ago, the conditions on Mars could have been similar to the conditions on Earth that gave rise to life here.

Another interesting thing about this discovery is that the ancient organic matter was found just 5 cm below the surface and it was preserved for billions of years. This excites scientists as to what could lie much deeper in the Martian soil.