A new study shows that the rover's Jezero crater landing site is home to deposits of hydrated silica, a mineral that just happens to be particularly good at preserving biosignatures
Whereas Earth's dunes are made of silicates or the largest class of minerals, imaging studies revealed that Titan's dunes contain dark organics of until now undetermined origin and chemical composition
The discovery suggests that a large structure such as a protocluster already existed at a time when the universe was only about 800 million years old—six percent of its present age