Science news this week: Life on Mars, weird water and a curious human cousin

This week, we've taken one tantalizing step closer to finding out if there really was life on Mars, after NASA's Perseverance rover uncovered the highest concentration of organic molecules on the Red Planet to date.

The data comes from mudstones in Jezero crater, which once hosted a deep lake. Last year, researchers described a piece of rock with patterns resembling those left by microorganisms on Earth as one of the clearest signs yet of past Martian microbes.

Now, scientists have confirmed the widespread presence of complex carbon-based molecules in this area of the crater, which they suggest indicate the presence of fossilized microbes.

Going even further back in history, new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed how early galaxies li...