Scientists announced that leopard-like spots on a rock sampled by NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars may potentially have been created by ancient life.

The rock, named Sapphire Canyon, was collected from the edges of the Neretva Vallis river valley, which once fed into Jezero Crater over three billion years ago, a site the rover has been exploring since February 2021.

Perseverance drilled the sample from a rock called Cheyava Falls in July 2024, and scientists have spent the past year analyzing it, publishing a peer-reviewed study in Nature while emphasizing that further investigation is needed to confirm a biological origin.

Researchers noted that the spots could represent a potential biosignature—features consistent with biological processes—but they are also exploring alternative geochemical explanations for the formation.

The study involved over 1,000 scientists and engineers worldwide, with NASA highlighting the importance of peer review and the eventual hope of returning the samples to Earth for more detailed laboratory analysis, CNN has reported.

NASA officials said this discovery brings humanity closer to answering the profound question of whether life ever existed beyond Earth, while ongoing rover surveys aim to better understand the environment where the rock was deposited.