Perseverance identifies organic carbon molecules in rocks on riverbed that carried water billions of years ago Nasa’s Perseverance rover has detected complex carbon molecules in Martian rocks that are already in the spotlight for bearing potential signatures of ancient microbial life. Measurements taken by the rover’s Sherloc instrument identified organic carbon in mudstones from the Bright Angel outcrop as it trundled along Neretva Vallis, a dried-up river that carried water into the planet’s J