NASA's Curiosity Mars rover made a surprising discovery after analyzing eight-year-old data: how much organic carbon is present in the Martian rocks it scanned.

Organic carbon may come from non-living sources like meteorites and volcanoes, but the discovery lends further support to the theory that Martian life may have existed billions of years ago with a biosphere that allowed rivers and oceans to flourish.

A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, where he served as the lead author, shed light on these issues in a statement.

However, the carbon levels were comparable to some desolate areas on Earth, albeit in a much more extreme environment.

Stern said there was organic carbon in the range of 200 to 273 parts per million. The amount found in rocks from low-life places on Earth, like the Atacama Desert in South America, and Mars meteorites is comparable or higher.'

During the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) experiment, Curiosity baked 3.5 billion-year-old mudstone powder samples inside the instrument back in 2014. 

Scientists were able to measure the carbon isotope ratios thanks to the process of turning some of the carbon into CO2.

As an example, the samples taken inside the Gale crater are believed to have come from an ancient lake that once existed on Mars.

It has been stated in the statement that a place like this would have offered a habitable environment for life, assuming it had ever existed.

The discovery could have significant implications for our understanding of ancient life on the Red Planet, but we shouldn't jump to conclusions yet.

Based on Stern's findings, the most likely scenario is to believe that the total organic carbon was the result of processes not caused by living organisms.

'It is not a guarantee that this organic carbon originated from biology, but isotopes can't prove it either, as the range overlaps with igneous carbon and meteoritic organic material, which she believed to be the most likely sources.'