Mars kept life's building blocks safe for 3.7 billion years

NASA's Curiosity rover has found the longest organic molecules ever discovered on Mars: decane, undecane and dodecane — chains of 10, 11 and 12 carbon atoms — preserved in rocks 3.7 billion years old. Chain-shaped molecules like these are fragile, yet they survived geological time on the Red Planet. The team was led by astrochemist Caroline Freissinet of France's CNRS, and the findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Scientists think the chains could come from fatty acids — the same kinds of molecules that can assemble into the capsule-like vesicles cells are made of. A possible echo of how life began on Earth, waiting patiently on another world.