Perseverance rover collects key rocky clues as to whether there was life on Mars

The Perseverance Mars rover takes a selfie as it looks at the “Rochette” rock, the first rock successfully sampled by the rover (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

Nasa’s Perseverance rover has collected the first rock samples from Mars that could be returned to Earth in the first step towards answering if the red planet ever hosted life.

The samples come from the floor of Jezero crater, which was once a quiet lake fed steadily by a small river some 3.7 billion years ago.