✕ Close NASA Mars Helicopter Technology Demonstration Nasa has revealed the latest results from its Curiosity rover gathering samples from the surface of Mars. The US space agency announced Mars has the building blocks of life, in a discovery that could suggest the planet was once inhabited - or even still is today. Read below to follow the announcements as they happened. Please allow a moment for the liveblog to load<doc-sep>Nasa’s Curiosity rover has found organic matter preserved on Mars, in a discovery that could suggest it was once home to life. The molecules represent an intriguing suggestion that Mars has been far more alive than we ever knew. While the discovery does not shed light on whether Mars was once home to alien life, and whether it could still be, the findings could be the result of ancient life there. “The chances of being able to find signs of ancient life with future missions, if life ever was present, just went up,” said Curiosity’s project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 1 /30 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 — more commonly known as WR 124 — and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago Nasa's most stunning pictures of space The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead — sharing pictures of black holes Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later — having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station Nasa/Scott Kelly Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Pluto image Four images from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called “draa” Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region Experts say that the findings should propel us to look for conclusive evidence of alien life living on the planet. “With these new findings, Mars is telling us to stay the course and keep searching for evidence of life,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at Nasa headquarters in Washington. “I’m confident that our ongoing and planned missions will unlock even more breathtaking discoveries on the Red Planet.” The new announcement is actually the result of two new studies that reveal vast detail about how methane exists on the planet, as well as the unexpected organic molecules that are preserved in its soil. And one team has made a significant breakthrough in our attempt to understand the ancient organic matter on Mars, which could help us discover whether the world was once habitable and what happened to it in the billions of years since. The surface of Mars is inhospitable today. But in the past, it almost certainly had liquid water, which could have helped fuel life there. The Curiosity rover has headed to an area that was thought to once have been a large lake of that water, inside Gale Crater. It was inside that hole where scientists found the new findings, which suggest the water lake had all the necessary ingredients for life – from chemical building blocks to the energy sources required to sustain life. Recommended Nasa set to make mystery Red Planet announcement The two studies appear in the journal Science. In a companion article, an outside expert describes the findings as “breakthroughs in astrobiology”. “The question of whether life might have originated or existed on Mars is a lot more opportune now that we know that organic molecules were present on its surface at the time,” wrote Utrecht University astrobiologist Inge Loes ten Kate of the Netherlands. Kirsten Siebach, a Rice University geologist who was also not involved in the studies, is equally excited. She said the discoveries break down some of the strongest arguments put forward by life-on-Mars sceptics, herself included. “The big takeaway is that we can find evidence. We can find organic matter preserved in mudstones that are more than 3 billion years old,” Ms Siebach said. “And we see releases of gas today that could be related to life in the subsurface, or at the very least are probably related to warm water or environments where Earth life would be happy living.” The methane observations provide “one of the most compelling” cases for present-day life, she said. Scientists have long been baffled by the discovery of significant amounts of methane on Mars. On Earth, most methane is produced by biological sources, leading to hopes the Red Planet is more alive than we had thought. The new data suggests the methane is being stored underneath the surface of the planet. Seasonal changes appear to bring that methane out and onto the surface, where it has been detected by Curiosity, suggest the scientists. Another piece of research published simultaneously shows that intriguing organic molecules have been found in ancient rock on Mars. Curiosity took new samples and heated them so that it could analyse the molecules that were released – and the data showed there is certain matter similar to the kind of organic-rich rock found on Earth.<doc-sep>
Editor's Note: NASA announced that the Curiosity rover uncovered tantalizing new evidence of organic molecules on the red planet. Read the full story about Curiosity's new findings. NASA has called a press conference to discuss new findings made by its Mars rover Curiosity, which has been exploring the Red Planet for six years. Just what has Curiosity discovered? The space agency is offering scant details in advance of the event, which is scheduled to begin tomorrow (June 7) at 2 p.m. EDT, saying only that it has new "science results" to discuss. The media and the public alike are invited to join the discussion via social media. If you'd like to join in, send questions to the participants using the hashtag #askNASA no later than 1 p.m. EDT on June 7. The event will be live-streamed here as well as on NASA's Facebook page and other social media platforms. Participants in the conference include Paul Mahaffy, director of the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; Jen Eigenbrode, a research scientist at Goddard; Chris Webster, a senior research fellow at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California; and Ashwin Vasavada, Mars Science Laboratory project scientist at JPL. Curiosity landed on Mars on Aug. 6, 2012 with a mission to determine whether the Red Planet ever harbored life or had conditions suitable for life. The car-sized rover hasn't found direct evidence of biological activity, but in 2013 it discovered that liquid water and the chemical ingredients for life once existed on Mars. Want more stories about the Red Planet? FOLLOW NBC NEWS MACH ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK, AND INSTAGRAM.