NASA's Mars rover Curiosity just might be the latest in a long line of Mars-exploring robots to discover the building blocks for primitive life on the Red Planet.

The Curiosity rover may have gathered evidence for the presence of perchlorates in Rocknest a sand patch inside the rover's Gale Crater landing site on the Red Planet, scientists say. If so, it shores up the case that the material may well be globally distributed on Mars.

Not only can perchlorates, which are a class of salts, serve as an energy source for potential Martian microorganisms, they are also a sensitive marker of past climate and can lead to the formation of liquid brines under current conditions on the planet.

The possibility that perchlorates are widespread on Mars was detailed in a March 19 presentation at the 44th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas.

Curiosity's possible detection

The possible detection of perchlorates at Curiositys Gale crater site was spotlighted by Doug Archer, a scientist with the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. He is focused on the habitability of various Martian environments over time. [The Search for Life on Mars (A Photo Timeline)]

Archer pointed to the rovers Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite that recently ran four samples from Rocknest. That area was selected as the source of the first samples analyzed because it is representative of both windblown material in the Gale Crater and the planet's globally distributed dust, he said.

"When we heated this up, we saw a large oxygen release at the same time we saw the release of these chlorinated hydrocarbons," Archer said, thus making a strong case for the presence of perchlorate salts in Rocknest's soil.

Phoenix finding

Perchlorates were first identified on Mars in the polar region by the Wet Chemistry Laboratory on NASAs Phoenix lander in 2008.

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Has NASA 's Curiosity Rover Found Clues to Life's Building Blocks on Mars?