Spatially distributed complex organic matter detected in an ancient river valley in Jezero crater, Mars
Ashley E. Murphy, Kyle Uckert, Kevin P. Hand, Rohit Bhartia, Sergei V. Bykov, Keyron Hickman-Lewis, Ryan S. Jakubek, Carina Lee, Francis M. McCubbin, Michelle E. Minitti, Alyssa Pascuzzo, Sandra Siljeström, Sunanda Sharma, Andrew Steele, Kenneth H. Williford, William Abbey, Sanford A. Asher, Robert Barnes, Parker A. Barr, James F. Bell, Olivier Beyssac, Tanja Bosak, Michael S. Bramble, Adrian Brown, Adrian P. Broz, Denise Buckner, Emily L. Cardarelli, Joseph L. Carsten, Andrea Corpolongo, Andrew Czaja, Scott G. C. Edgington, Bethany L. Ehlmann, Kenneth A. Farley, Teresa Fornaro, Marc Fries, Roxana González-Burgos, Sanjeev Gupta, Nikole C. Haney, William Hug, Joshua Huggett, Joel A. Hurowitz, Samara Imbeah, Joanna Clark, Alexander J. Jones, Linda C. Kah, Megan R. Kennedy, Steven W. Lee, Justin Maki, Brian Nixon, Jorge I. Núñez, Jeffrey T. Osterhout, Nicole D. Phelan, Yu Yu Phua, Michael A. Ravine, Joseph Razzell Hollis, Eva Scheller, Mitchell D. Schulte, Mark A. Sephton, Justin I. Simon, Anushree Srivastava, Kathryn M. Stack, Jason Van Beek, Benjamin P. Weiss, Roger Wiens, Amy J. Williams, Brittan V. Wogsland, R. Aileen YingstUsing a Raman spectrometer onboard the Perseverance rover, we report the heterogeneous distribution of organic carbon within mudstones located in an ancient river valley on Mars. Measurements of two mudstones show hundreds of organic detections, making this the most robust organic detection in Jezero crater thus far, and, to our knowledge, the only detection of macromolecular carbon on a natural rock surface on Mars. Spectra of the interior of one rock reveal an association of organics with secondary carbonate and sulfate minerals, whereas another rock exhibits an association of organics with primary silicate-dominated matrix. Although in situ Raman analyses cannot determine whether these organics denote abiotic or biotic sources, the organic association with both depositional and diagenetic minerals and the detection of organics on the martian surface suggests that the organics observed ubiquitously at the Bright Angel outcrop may be resistant to radiation and oxidation or have been relatively recently exposed.