The Perseverance rover may have just found evidence of organic compounds in the rocks of the Jezero Crater.

Obtained from two different sites in the crater, the minerals contain evidence of aquatic processes that carve out perfect little hollows for cooking up some organic chemistry.

Using Perseverance's Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) instrument, an international team led by planetary scientist Eva Scheller of Caltech and MIT conducted a probe of igneous rocks in the crater floor.

They used deep ultraviolet Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy on three rocks from two sites in the crater, and found signs that significant contact with water had altered the rocks.

"Collectively, the data show the drilled samples collected by Perseverance from the floor of Jezero crater are likely to contain evidence for carbonation and formation of sulfates and perchlorates," they write in their paper.

"Fluorescence signatures consistent with organics present within these materials indicates an interplay between igneous rocks, aqueous alteration, and organic material on Mars.".