organic chemicals

We have had a major discovery. We have found organics on Mars," Curiosity lead scientist John Grotzinger, with the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., said during a webcast news conference at a science meeting in San Francisco. "The probability of any of these things being sources [from life] … we just have to respect that it is a possibility," he added. Curiosity picked up hints of organics in its earliest chemical analysis of rocks in Gale Crater, a 154-kilometre wide impact basin where the rover made a sky-crane landing in August 2012. Last week, scientists published research showing the crater was once filled with water, with sediments building up over time to form five-kilometre high Mount Sharp, which rises from the basin's floor.