Mars Curiosity Rover Makes a Big Find on the Red Planet
Nautilus Magazine | April 23, 2026 | Jake Currie

With all the excitement over sending scientists back to the moon, it’s easy to forget we’ve already got a pair of talented chemists on Mars: the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. …

Now, new research published in Nature Communications details Curiosity’s latest find—never-before-seen organic compounds, including one with a structure similar to DNA precursors. ….

Curiosity extracted samples from clay deposits from Gale crater, broke them down with on-board chemicals, and analyzed them with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. …the rover found more than 20 organic molecules, including some surprising large compounds.

One was a nitrogen-bearing molecule with a structure similar to DNA precursors and another was a benzothiophene, a double-ringed organic molecule containing sulfur, likely brought to the planet via meteorite.