The Perseverance rover has collected Martian rock samples in two different ways, which NASA believes may contain evidence of extraterrestrial life. This effort has been ongoing since 2021, and rocks and sediments have been gathered from an ancient Martian lakebed.

NASA sees two paths for saving its beleaguered plan to retrieve materials from the Red Planet but won’t choose between them until 2026

NASA announced Tuesday that it is exploring two options to move forward with its mission to return samples from Mars at a lower cost.