NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover successfully collected its first pair of rock samples, with signs that they were in contact with water for a long period of time indicating that ancient life may have existed on the planet.

According to a NASA statement, scientists are already gaining new insights into the region. After collecting its first sample, named “Montdenier,” Sept. 6, the team collected a second, “Montagnac,” from the same rock Sept. 8.

“It looks like our first rocks reveal a potentially habitable sustained environment,” said Ken Farley of Caltech, project scientist for the mission, which is led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “It’s a big deal that the water was there a long time.”

Analysis of the rocks from which the Montdenier and Montagnac samples were taken and from the rover’s previous sampling attempt may help the science team piece together the timeline of the area’s past, which was marked by volcanic activity and periods of persistent water.

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The rock that provided the mission’s first core samples is basaltic in composition and may be the product of lava flows. The presence of crystalline minerals in volcanic rocks is especially helpful in radiometric dating. The volcanic origin of the rock could help scientists accurately date when it formed.

'Malamaire' View of 'Citadelle' Area

Each rock sample can serve as part of a larger chronological puzzle; put them in the right order, and scientists have a timeline of the most important events in the crater’s history. Some of those events include the formation of Jezero Crater, the emergence and disappearance of Jezero’s lake, and changes to the planet’s climate in the ancient past, the NASA statement said.

What NASA also considers important is that salts have been spied within these rocks. These salts may have formed when groundwater flowed through and altered the original minerals in the rock, or more likely when liquid water evaporated, leaving the salts.

Salt minerals are also well-known on Earth for their ability to preserve signs of ancient life which holds good for Mars as well.

The Perseverance science team already knew a lake once filled the crater, but for how long has been more uncertain. The scientists couldn’t dismiss the possibility that Jezero’s lake was a “flash in the pan”: Floodwaters could have rapidly filled the impact crater and dried up in the space of 50 years, for example.

But the level of alteration that scientists see in the rock that provided the core samples suggests that groundwater was present for a long time, NASA has pointed out.

This groundwater could have been related to the lake that was once in Jezero, or it could have travelled through the rocks long after the lake had dried up. Though scientists still can’t say whether any of the water that altered these rocks was present for tens of thousands or for millions of years, they feel more certain that it was there for long enough to make the area more welcoming to microscopic life in the past, the NASA statement added.