Among the chemicals discovered inside the rock, called “John Klein,” were sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon, all key ingredients for life.
The analysis showed that water which once soaked the rock had a neutral pH – not too acidic and not too salty.
The findings indicate that if organics were present, they could have been preserved. That assessment remains under way.
“The key thing here is this an environment a microbe could have lived in and might have even prospered in,” lead scientist John Grotzinger, with the California Institute of Technology, told reporters during a press conference at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., and on a conference call.
