Alex McColgan

Still, Mars kept dangling hope.

In 1996, a photo of meteorite ALH 84001 made headlines.

The rock itself was over 4 billion years old, from a time when Mars had liquid water on its surface.

Under the electron microscope, tiny structures emerged, resembling bacterial colonies.

The world stood still.

Researchers thought they were onto something big, so big that President Bill Clinton gave a formal announcement about the discovery.

Sounds a lot like NASA's recent statement of Percy's discovery, doesn't it?

But in 2022, those squiggles were ruled non-biological, explained instead by a water-rock reaction called serpentinization, another false alarm.

So is our recent finding in the Jezero crater another close call?

Or is it proof that the third time really is the charm?

There's only one way to find out.

We have to bring the sample home for further testing.

That's where the Mars Sample Return mission comes in.

It's a complex mission, which requires sending three separate spacecraft to Mars.

Percy has already completed phase one, it's drilled into Chiava Falls, and tucked away a precious core sample of the mudstone rock mission scientist named Sapphire Canyon.

Phase 2 would be to send another spacecraft to land near Perseverance, collect those tubes and launch them into orbit around Mars.

The third and final craft would collect the samples from the orbiter and ferry them all the way back to Earth.

It's a huge task, with an estimated price tag of $11 billion.

The Mars sample return mission was first announced in 2022 as a joint collaboration between NASA and ESA.

Since then, it has been fraught with financial struggles and uncertainties, delaying the project from 2033 to 2040, before ultimately being suspended indefinitely.