Everyone is talking about Greenland. Here’s what it’s like to visit
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A few months ago, Greenland was quietly getting on with winter, as the territory slid deeper into the darkness that envelops the world’s northerly reaches at this time of year.
But President Donald Trump’s musings about America taking over this island of 56,000 largely Inuit people, halfway between New York and Moscow, has seen Greenland shaken from its frozen Arctic anonymity.
Denmark, for whom Greenland is an autonomous crown dependency, has protested it’s not for sale. Officials in Greenland, meanwhile, have sought to assert the territory’s right to independence.
The conversation continues to intensify. A contentious March 28 visit to a US military installation by Usha Vance, the second lady, accompanied by her husband, Vice President JD Vance, was the latest in a series of events to focus attention on Trump’s ambitions for Greenland.
The visit was originally planned as a cultural exchange, but was shortened following complaints from Greenland Prime Minister Mute B. Egede.
Had the Vances prolonged their scheduled brief visit, they would’ve discovered a ruggedly pristine wildernesses steeped in rich Indigenous culture.
An inhospitable icecap several miles deep covers 80% of Greenland, forcing the Inuit to dwell along the shorelines in brightly painted communities. Here, they spend brutally cold winters hunting seals on ice under the northern lights in near perpetual darkness. Although these days, they can also rely on community stores.
The problem for travelers over the years has been getting to Greenland via time-consuming indirect flights. That’s changing. Late in 2024, the capital Nuuk opened a long-delayed international airport. From June 2025, United Airlines will be operating a twice-weekly direct service from Newark to Nuuk.
Two further international airports are due to open by 2026 — Qaqortoq in South Greenland and more significantly in Ilulissat, the island’s only real tourism hotspot.
Tbilisi, Georgia — Jailed journalist Mzia Amaghlobeli gets weaker every day as her hunger strike has reached three weeks in Rustavi, a town near the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, her lawyer says. Now the 49-year-old is having difficulty walking the short distance from her cell to the room where they usually meet, and human rights officials, colleagues and family fear for her life.
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Amaghlobeli was arrested Jan. 12 during an anti-government protest in the coastal city of Batumi, one of over 40 people in custody on criminal charges from a series of demonstrations that have hit the South Caucasus nation of 3.7 million in recent months.
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The political turmoil follows a parliamentary election that was won by the ruling Georgian Dream party, although its opponents allege the vote was rigged.
Protests highlight battle over Georgia’s future. Here’s why it matters.
Its outcome pushed Georgia further into Russia’s orbit of influence. Georgia aspired to join the European Union, but the party suspended accession talks with the bloc after the election.
As it sought to cement its grip on power, Georgian Dream has cracked down on freedom of assembly and expression in what the opposition says is similar to President Vladimir Putin’s actions in neighboring Russia, its former imperial ruler.
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Curiosity rover makes ‘arguably the most exciting organic detection to date on Mars’
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The NASA Curiosity rover has detected the largest organic molecules found to date on Mars, opening a window into the red planet’s past. The newly detected compounds suggest complex organic chemistry may have occurred in the planet’s past — the kind necessary for the origin of life, according to new research.
The organic compounds, which include decane, undecane and dodecane, came to light after the rover analyzed a pulverized 3.7 billion-year-old rock sample using its onboard mini lab called SAM, short for Sample Analysis at Mars.
Scientists believe the long chains of molecules could be fragments of fatty acids, which are organic molecules that are chemical building blocks of life on Earth and help form cell membranes. But such compounds can also be formed without the presence of life, created when water interacts with minerals in hydrothermal vents.
The molecules cannot currently be confirmed as evidence of past life on the red planet, but they add to the growing list of compounds that robotic explorers have discovered on Mars in recent years. A study detailing the findings was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The detection of the fragile molecules also encourages astrobiologists that if any biosignatures, or past signs of life, ever existed on Mars, they are likely still detectable despite the harsh solar radiation that has bombarded the planet for tens of millions of years.
“Ancient life, if it happened on Mars, it would have released some complex and fragile molecules,” said lead study author Dr. Caroline Freissinet, research scientist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in the Laboratory for Atmospheres, Observations, and Space in Guyancourt, France. “And because now we know that Mars can preserve these complex and fragile molecules, it means that we could detect ancient life on Mars.”
While the Cumberland sample may contain longer chains of fatty acids, SAM is not designed to detect them. But SAM’s ability to spot these larger molecules suggests it could detect similar chemical signatures of past life on Mars if they’re present, Williams said.
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“Curiosity is not a life detection mission,” Freissinet said. “Curiosity is a habitability detection mission to know if all the conditions were right … for life to evolve. Having these results, it’s really at the edge of the capabilities of Curiosity, and it’s even maybe better than what we had expected from this mission.”
Before sending missions to Mars, scientists didn’t think organic molecules would be found on the red planet because of the intensity of radiation Mars has long endured, Glavin said.
Curiosity won’t return to Yellowknife Bay during its mission, but there are still pristine pieces of the Cumberland sample aboard. Next, the team wants to design a new experiment to see what it can detect. If the team can identify similar long-chain molecules, it would mark another step forward that might help researchers determine their origins, Freissinet said.
“That’s the most precious sample we have on board … waiting for us to run the perfect experiment on it,” she said. “It holds secrets, and we need to decipher the secrets.”
Briony Horgan, coinvestigator on the Perseverance rover mission and professor of planetary science at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, called the detection “a big win for the whole team.” Horgan was not involved the study.
“This detection really confirms our hopes that sediments laid down in ancient watery environments on Mars could preserve a treasure trove of organic molecules that can tell us about everything from prebiotic processes and pathways for the origin of life, to potential biosignatures from ancient organisms,” Horgan said.
Dr. Ben K.D. Pearce, assistant professor in Purdue’s department of Earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences and leader of the Laboratory for Origins and Astrobiology Research, called the findings “arguably the most exciting organic detection to date on Mars.” Pearce did not participate in the research.
Tesla is bringing its electric cars to oil-rich Saudi Arabia amid falling global sales
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Tesla will start selling its electric vehicles in Saudi Arabia, entering the Gulf region’s largest economy as the company’s global sales are sliding and CEO Elon Musk courts controversy with his role in the US government.
The carmaker announced Wednesday that it would host a launch event in the kingdom on April 10, where it will showcase its EVs. Attendees will also have the chance to “experience the future of autonomous driving with Cybercab and meet Optimus, our humanoid robot, as we showcase what’s next in AI and robotics,” Tesla (TSLA) said.
Tesla may struggle to gain market share in oil-rich Saudi Arabia as EVs make up a little over 1% of all car sales in the country, according to a report by consultancy PwC published in September.
Tesla’s entry into the new market comes as the company fights battles on several fronts.
Last year, it recorded the first annual decline in sales in its history as a public company, posting a drop of 1%.
The company is facing intensifying competition in China, the world’s largest auto market. On Tuesday, BYD, a Chinese maker of electric and hybrid cars, reported $107 billion in annual sales for 2024, beating the near-$98 billion notched by Tesla.
And last week, BYD unveiled an ultra-fast charging system, which it said was capable of adding 250 miles (402 km) of range in just five minutes, easily outdoing Tesla’s charging technology. Tesla’s Superchargers take 15 minutes to charge an EV, providing a range of 200 miles.
Tesla has also suffered slumping sales in Europe. In February, the carmaker sold around 40% fewer vehicles on the continent compared with the same month in 2024, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.
Remote and rugged
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A more organic way to see this coast is by the multi-day coastal ferry, the long-running Sarfaq Ittuk, of the Arctic Umiaq Line. It’s less corporate than the modern cruise ships and travelers get to meet Inuit commuters. Greenland is pricey. Lettuce in a local community store might cost $10, but this coastal voyage won’t break the bank.
The hot ticket currently for exploring Greenland’s wilder side is to head to the east coast facing Europe. It’s raw and sees far fewer tourists, with a harshly dramatic coastline of fjords where icebergs drift south. There are no roads and the scattered population of just over 3,500 people inhabit a coastline roughly the distance from New York to Denver.
A growing number of small expedition vessels probe this remote coast for its frosted scenery and wildlife. Increasingly popular is the world’s largest fjord system of Scoresby Sound with its sharp-fanged mountains and hanging valleys choked by glaciers. Sailing north is the prosaically named North East Greenland National Park, fabulous for spotting wildlife on the tundra.
Travelers come to see polar bears which, during the northern hemisphere’s summer, move closer to land as the sea-ice melts. There are also musk oxen, great flocks of migrating geese, Arctic foxes and walrus.
Some of these animals are fair game for the local communities. Perhaps Greenland’s most interesting cultural visit is to a village that will take longer to learn how to pronounce than actually walk around — Ittoqqortoormiit. Five hundred miles north of its neighboring settlement, the 345 locals are frozen in for nine months of the year. Ships sail in to meet them during the brief summer melt between June and August.
Locked in by ice, they’ve retained traditional habits.
“My parents hunt nearly all their food,” said Mette Barselajsen, who owns Ittoqqortoormiit’s only guesthouse. “They prefer the old ways, burying it in the ground to ferment and preserve it. Just one muskox can bring 440 pounds of meat.”
Iceberg flotillas debridge finance Located on the west coast Ilulissat is a pretty halibut- and prawn-fishing port on a dark rock bay where visitors can sit in pubs sipping craft beers chill-filtered by 100000-year-old glacial ice. It’s a place to be awed by the UNESCO World Heritage Icefjord where Manhattan skyscraper-sized icebergs disgorge from Greenland’s icecap to float like ghostly ships in the surrounding Disko Bay. Small boats take visitors out to sail closely among the bay’s magnificent iceberg flotilla. But not too close. “I was on my boat once and saw one of these icebergs split in two. The pieces fell backwards into the sea and created a giant wave” said David Karlsen skipper of the pleasure-boat Katak. “…I didn’t hang around.” Disko Bay’s other giants are whales. From June to September breaching humpback whales join the likes of fin and minke whales feasting on plankton. Whale-watching is excellent all around Greenland’s craggy coastline. Whales are eaten here. Visitors shouldn’t be surprised to encounter the traditional Greenlandic delicacy of mattak — whale-skin and blubber that when tasted is akin to chewing on rubber. Inuit communities have quotas to not only hunt the likes of narwhals but also polar bears musk-ox and caribou — which can also appear on menus.
A long time in the making Curiosity landed in Gale Crater on August 6 2012. More than 12 years later the rover has driven over 21 miles 34 kilometers to ascend Mount Sharp which is within the crater. The feature’s many layers preserve millions of years of geological history on Mars showing how it shifted from a wet to a dry environment. celer network Perhaps one of the most valuable samples Curiosity has gathered on its mission to understand whether Mars was ever habitable was collected in May 2013. The rover drilled the Cumberland sample from an area within a crater called Yellowknife Bay which resembled an ancient lake bed. The rocks from Yellowknife Bay so intrigued Curiosity’s science team that it had the rover drive in the opposite direction to collect samples from the area before heading to Mount Sharp. Since collecting the Cumberland sample Curiosity has used SAM to study it in a variety of ways revealing that Yellowknife Bay was once the site of an ancient lake where clay minerals formed in water. The mudstone created an environment that could concentrate and preserve organic molecules and trapped them inside the fine grains of the sedimentary rock. Freissinet helped lead a research team in 2015 that was able to identify organic molecules within the Cumberland sample. The instrument detected an abundance of sulfur which can be used to preserve organic molecules; nitrates which are essential for plant and animal health on Earth; and methane composed of a type of carbon associated with biological processes on Earth. “There is evidence that liquid water existed in Gale Crater for millions of years and probably much longer which means there was enough time for life-forming chemistry to happen in these crater-lake environments on Mars” said study coauthor Daniel Glavin senior scientist for sample return at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Maryland in a statement.
Everyone is talking about Greenland. Here’s what it’s like to visit
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A few months ago, Greenland was quietly getting on with winter, as the territory slid deeper into the darkness that envelops the world’s northerly reaches at this time of year.
But President Donald Trump’s musings about America taking over this island of 56,000 largely Inuit people, halfway between New York and Moscow, has seen Greenland shaken from its frozen Arctic anonymity.
Denmark, for whom Greenland is an autonomous crown dependency, has protested it’s not for sale. Officials in Greenland, meanwhile, have sought to assert the territory’s right to independence.
The conversation continues to intensify. A contentious March 28 visit to a US military installation by Usha Vance, the second lady, accompanied by her husband, Vice President JD Vance, was the latest in a series of events to focus attention on Trump’s ambitions for Greenland.
The visit was originally planned as a cultural exchange, but was shortened following complaints from Greenland Prime Minister Mute B. Egede.
Had the Vances prolonged their scheduled brief visit, they would’ve discovered a ruggedly pristine wildernesses steeped in rich Indigenous culture.
An inhospitable icecap several miles deep covers 80% of Greenland, forcing the Inuit to dwell along the shorelines in brightly painted communities. Here, they spend brutally cold winters hunting seals on ice under the northern lights in near perpetual darkness. Although these days, they can also rely on community stores.
The problem for travelers over the years has been getting to Greenland via time-consuming indirect flights. That’s changing. Late in 2024, the capital Nuuk opened a long-delayed international airport. From June 2025, United Airlines will be operating a twice-weekly direct service from Newark to Nuuk.
Two further international airports are due to open by 2026 — Qaqortoq in South Greenland and more significantly in Ilulissat, the island’s only real tourism hotspot.
Tbilisi, Georgia — Jailed journalist Mzia Amaghlobeli gets weaker every day as her hunger strike has reached three weeks in Rustavi, a town near the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, her lawyer says. Now the 49-year-old is having difficulty walking the short distance from her cell to the room where they usually meet, and human rights officials, colleagues and family fear for her life.
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Amaghlobeli was arrested Jan. 12 during an anti-government protest in the coastal city of Batumi, one of over 40 people in custody on criminal charges from a series of demonstrations that have hit the South Caucasus nation of 3.7 million in recent months.
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The political turmoil follows a parliamentary election that was won by the ruling Georgian Dream party, although its opponents allege the vote was rigged.
Protests highlight battle over Georgia’s future. Here’s why it matters.
Its outcome pushed Georgia further into Russia’s orbit of influence. Georgia aspired to join the European Union, but the party suspended accession talks with the bloc after the election.
As it sought to cement its grip on power, Georgian Dream has cracked down on freedom of assembly and expression in what the opposition says is similar to President Vladimir Putin’s actions in neighboring Russia, its former imperial ruler.
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Curiosity rover makes ‘arguably the most exciting organic detection to date on Mars’
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The NASA Curiosity rover has detected the largest organic molecules found to date on Mars, opening a window into the red planet’s past. The newly detected compounds suggest complex organic chemistry may have occurred in the planet’s past — the kind necessary for the origin of life, according to new research.
The organic compounds, which include decane, undecane and dodecane, came to light after the rover analyzed a pulverized 3.7 billion-year-old rock sample using its onboard mini lab called SAM, short for Sample Analysis at Mars.
Scientists believe the long chains of molecules could be fragments of fatty acids, which are organic molecules that are chemical building blocks of life on Earth and help form cell membranes. But such compounds can also be formed without the presence of life, created when water interacts with minerals in hydrothermal vents.
The molecules cannot currently be confirmed as evidence of past life on the red planet, but they add to the growing list of compounds that robotic explorers have discovered on Mars in recent years. A study detailing the findings was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The detection of the fragile molecules also encourages astrobiologists that if any biosignatures, or past signs of life, ever existed on Mars, they are likely still detectable despite the harsh solar radiation that has bombarded the planet for tens of millions of years.
“Ancient life, if it happened on Mars, it would have released some complex and fragile molecules,” said lead study author Dr. Caroline Freissinet, research scientist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in the Laboratory for Atmospheres, Observations, and Space in Guyancourt, France. “And because now we know that Mars can preserve these complex and fragile molecules, it means that we could detect ancient life on Mars.”
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While the Cumberland sample may contain longer chains of fatty acids, SAM is not designed to detect them. But SAM’s ability to spot these larger molecules suggests it could detect similar chemical signatures of past life on Mars if they’re present, Williams said.
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“Curiosity is not a life detection mission,” Freissinet said. “Curiosity is a habitability detection mission to know if all the conditions were right … for life to evolve. Having these results, it’s really at the edge of the capabilities of Curiosity, and it’s even maybe better than what we had expected from this mission.”
Before sending missions to Mars, scientists didn’t think organic molecules would be found on the red planet because of the intensity of radiation Mars has long endured, Glavin said.
Curiosity won’t return to Yellowknife Bay during its mission, but there are still pristine pieces of the Cumberland sample aboard. Next, the team wants to design a new experiment to see what it can detect. If the team can identify similar long-chain molecules, it would mark another step forward that might help researchers determine their origins, Freissinet said.
“That’s the most precious sample we have on board … waiting for us to run the perfect experiment on it,” she said. “It holds secrets, and we need to decipher the secrets.”
Briony Horgan, coinvestigator on the Perseverance rover mission and professor of planetary science at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, called the detection “a big win for the whole team.” Horgan was not involved the study.
“This detection really confirms our hopes that sediments laid down in ancient watery environments on Mars could preserve a treasure trove of organic molecules that can tell us about everything from prebiotic processes and pathways for the origin of life, to potential biosignatures from ancient organisms,” Horgan said.
Dr. Ben K.D. Pearce, assistant professor in Purdue’s department of Earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences and leader of the Laboratory for Origins and Astrobiology Research, called the findings “arguably the most exciting organic detection to date on Mars.” Pearce did not participate in the research.
Tesla is bringing its electric cars to oil-rich Saudi Arabia amid falling global sales
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Tesla will start selling its electric vehicles in Saudi Arabia, entering the Gulf region’s largest economy as the company’s global sales are sliding and CEO Elon Musk courts controversy with his role in the US government.
The carmaker announced Wednesday that it would host a launch event in the kingdom on April 10, where it will showcase its EVs. Attendees will also have the chance to “experience the future of autonomous driving with Cybercab and meet Optimus, our humanoid robot, as we showcase what’s next in AI and robotics,” Tesla (TSLA) said.
Tesla may struggle to gain market share in oil-rich Saudi Arabia as EVs make up a little over 1% of all car sales in the country, according to a report by consultancy PwC published in September.
Tesla’s entry into the new market comes as the company fights battles on several fronts.
Last year, it recorded the first annual decline in sales in its history as a public company, posting a drop of 1%.
The company is facing intensifying competition in China, the world’s largest auto market. On Tuesday, BYD, a Chinese maker of electric and hybrid cars, reported $107 billion in annual sales for 2024, beating the near-$98 billion notched by Tesla.
And last week, BYD unveiled an ultra-fast charging system, which it said was capable of adding 250 miles (402 km) of range in just five minutes, easily outdoing Tesla’s charging technology. Tesla’s Superchargers take 15 minutes to charge an EV, providing a range of 200 miles.
Tesla has also suffered slumping sales in Europe. In February, the carmaker sold around 40% fewer vehicles on the continent compared with the same month in 2024, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.
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A more organic way to see this coast is by the multi-day coastal ferry, the long-running Sarfaq Ittuk, of the Arctic Umiaq Line. It’s less corporate than the modern cruise ships and travelers get to meet Inuit commuters. Greenland is pricey. Lettuce in a local community store might cost $10, but this coastal voyage won’t break the bank.
The hot ticket currently for exploring Greenland’s wilder side is to head to the east coast facing Europe. It’s raw and sees far fewer tourists, with a harshly dramatic coastline of fjords where icebergs drift south. There are no roads and the scattered population of just over 3,500 people inhabit a coastline roughly the distance from New York to Denver.
A growing number of small expedition vessels probe this remote coast for its frosted scenery and wildlife. Increasingly popular is the world’s largest fjord system of Scoresby Sound with its sharp-fanged mountains and hanging valleys choked by glaciers. Sailing north is the prosaically named North East Greenland National Park, fabulous for spotting wildlife on the tundra.
Travelers come to see polar bears which, during the northern hemisphere’s summer, move closer to land as the sea-ice melts. There are also musk oxen, great flocks of migrating geese, Arctic foxes and walrus.
Some of these animals are fair game for the local communities. Perhaps Greenland’s most interesting cultural visit is to a village that will take longer to learn how to pronounce than actually walk around — Ittoqqortoormiit. Five hundred miles north of its neighboring settlement, the 345 locals are frozen in for nine months of the year. Ships sail in to meet them during the brief summer melt between June and August.
Locked in by ice, they’ve retained traditional habits.
“My parents hunt nearly all their food,” said Mette Barselajsen, who owns Ittoqqortoormiit’s only guesthouse. “They prefer the old ways, burying it in the ground to ferment and preserve it. Just one muskox can bring 440 pounds of meat.”
Iceberg flotillas debridge finance Located on the west coast Ilulissat is a pretty halibut- and prawn-fishing port on a dark rock bay where visitors can sit in pubs sipping craft beers chill-filtered by 100000-year-old glacial ice. It’s a place to be awed by the UNESCO World Heritage Icefjord where Manhattan skyscraper-sized icebergs disgorge from Greenland’s icecap to float like ghostly ships in the surrounding Disko Bay. Small boats take visitors out to sail closely among the bay’s magnificent iceberg flotilla. But not too close. “I was on my boat once and saw one of these icebergs split in two. The pieces fell backwards into the sea and created a giant wave” said David Karlsen skipper of the pleasure-boat Katak. “…I didn’t hang around.” Disko Bay’s other giants are whales. From June to September breaching humpback whales join the likes of fin and minke whales feasting on plankton. Whale-watching is excellent all around Greenland’s craggy coastline. Whales are eaten here. Visitors shouldn’t be surprised to encounter the traditional Greenlandic delicacy of mattak — whale-skin and blubber that when tasted is akin to chewing on rubber. Inuit communities have quotas to not only hunt the likes of narwhals but also polar bears musk-ox and caribou — which can also appear on menus.
A long time in the making Curiosity landed in Gale Crater on August 6 2012. More than 12 years later the rover has driven over 21 miles 34 kilometers to ascend Mount Sharp which is within the crater. The feature’s many layers preserve millions of years of geological history on Mars showing how it shifted from a wet to a dry environment. celer network Perhaps one of the most valuable samples Curiosity has gathered on its mission to understand whether Mars was ever habitable was collected in May 2013. The rover drilled the Cumberland sample from an area within a crater called Yellowknife Bay which resembled an ancient lake bed. The rocks from Yellowknife Bay so intrigued Curiosity’s science team that it had the rover drive in the opposite direction to collect samples from the area before heading to Mount Sharp. Since collecting the Cumberland sample Curiosity has used SAM to study it in a variety of ways revealing that Yellowknife Bay was once the site of an ancient lake where clay minerals formed in water. The mudstone created an environment that could concentrate and preserve organic molecules and trapped them inside the fine grains of the sedimentary rock. Freissinet helped lead a research team in 2015 that was able to identify organic molecules within the Cumberland sample. The instrument detected an abundance of sulfur which can be used to preserve organic molecules; nitrates which are essential for plant and animal health on Earth; and methane composed of a type of carbon associated with biological processes on Earth. “There is evidence that liquid water existed in Gale Crater for millions of years and probably much longer which means there was enough time for life-forming chemistry to happen in these crater-lake environments on Mars” said study coauthor Daniel Glavin senior scientist for sample return at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Maryland in a statement.