Mars Curiosity Rover Science Lab All Online

NASA says its "Mars Curiosity rover has used its full array of instruments to analyze Martian soil for the first time, and found a complex chemistry within the Martian soil." According to the space agency, "Water and sulfur and chlorine-containing substances, among other ingredients, showed up in samples Curiosity's arm delivered to an analytical laboratory inside the rover."

The test sample was plucked from a flat portion of the Gale Crater known as the "Rocknest." While there was no detection of so-called Martian organics, barring a technical failure, there is plenty of time for the NASA team and the Curiosity rover to continue the search for evidence that a habitable environment for microbes exists, or ever existed, on Mars.