A 3.5-billion-year old rock discovered on the Red Planet is "the closest we've come to discovering ancient life on Mars," according to NASA. Potential signs of microbial life were found in a rock sample collected by the rover in 2024 from an ancient dry riverbed on Mars' Jezero Crater -- an area of rocky outcrops on the edges the Neretva Vallis, a river valley carved by water rushing to the canyon billions of years ago, NASA officials announced in a press conference on Wednesday. The sample, named "Sapphire Canyon," contains potential biosignatures, which are substances or structures that might have a biological origin, NASA said. "It's a signature. It's a sort of leftover sign. It's not life itself," Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said Wednesday.

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