The NASA Curiosity Rover, which landed on Mars in 2012, has found ‘building blocks of life’ or organic molecules on the planet’s soil. The particles were found in a roughly 3 billion-year-old mud stone soil sample taken from the Gale Crater, NASA announced on Thursday. The rover has also detected traces of methane gas in the Martian atmosphere and found a seasonal variance in the presence of Methane in the atmosphere.

However, NASA scientists have emphasized that these organic compounds and molecules can also exist without life. These organic compounds work as “chemical clues” for the researchers about Mars, among st whom Methane is considered to be the simplest organic molecule because about 95 percent of the methane in Earth’s atmosphere is produced from biological activity. It is also present in other parts of the Milky Way that could host life, like Saturn and Jupiter’s moons Enceladus, Europa and Titan. But life formed there will be very different from how it is understood on the Earth.

Details of this new finding were published in the journal Science on Thursday, where it is stated that the researchers believe these findings to be “breakthroughs in astrobiology.” The Curiosity data is providing a more and more clear picture off how the conditions in Mars might have been, millions of years ago, which was more suitable for life.”With the new findings, Mars is telling us to keep searching for evidence of life,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. “I’m confident that our ongoing missions will unlock even more breathtaking discoveries on the Red Planet,” reported the CNN. Paul Mahaffy, study author and director of the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center said, “We have greatly expanded our search for organic compounds, which is fundamental in the search for life.”