Amy Williams
Professor of geological sciences at the University of Florida and a member of both the curiosity-rover and perseverance-rover science teams.
Lead author of the April 2026 Nature Communications paper on the SAM/TMAH detection of more than 20 organic molecules in Gale Crater’s Glen Torridon clays — including a nitrogen-bearing DNA-precursor-like compound and benzothiophene (src-curiosity-mars-life-molecules-2026-04).
”In-situ + exogenous” framing (2026)
In src-mars-organics-fresh-clues-2026-04 (jeffrey-kluger, TIME), Williams articulates the modern origin-of-life consensus as the combination of geologically in-situ chemistry and meteorite-delivered prebiotic feedstocks (exogenous-organics) — citing Bennu’s 14 protein-forming amino acids and the Murchison meteorite’s hexamethylenetetramine as exogenous-delivery evidence — and applies the same combined frame to early Mars. She also confirms that SAM-class TMAH wet chemistry will fly on ESA’s rosalind-franklin-rover (2028) and NASA’s dragonfly-mission (2027), and that her team has run a second TMAH experiment at another Gale Crater site, results pending.
Related Pages
- curiosity-rover
- perseverance-rover
- sample-analysis-at-mars
- organic-molecules-mars
- jennifer-eigenbrode
- bennu-asteroid
- murchison-meteorite
- hexamethylenetetramine
- exogenous-organics
- rosalind-franklin-rover
- dragonfly-mission
- biosignatures
- astrobiology
- src-curiosity-mars-life-molecules-2026-04
- src-mars-organics-fresh-clues-2026-04