A n international team of researchers reports the result of an incredible experiment performed on Mars. It had never been done before on another planet, and the experiment revealed more than 20 organic molecules that had been trapped in clay for 3.5 billion years. This has enormous implications for the search for ancient life on the Red Planet.

In a quest to answer the question of habitability, scientists equipped Curiosity with a suite of instruments and milliliter-scale sealed cups containing liquid reagents in order to perform nine wet chemistry experiments.

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of ...

Searching for organic molecules in rocks on Mars is no easy task. Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument is designed to analyze the chemical composition of gases, which it creates by slowly heating rock samples in an oven. The volatile ...

A student in an Advanced Placement biology class might dissect a fetal pig to study internal organs and the skeleton. But can a student get the same level of experience from a virtual dissection online, without actually smelling the formaldehyde or making ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio – “Smitten with Science” at the Great Lakes Science Center blends candy, chemistry and creativity into a hands-on Valentine’s season experience designed to show kids that science can be found in unexpected places — even inside candy.