Rover's big discovery: NASA Mars rover Curiosity makes a discovery 'for the history books' (PHOTOS)

Associated Press

Life on Mars? NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has apparently made a discovery "for the history books," but we'll have to wait a few weeks to find out what the new Red Planet find may be.

The discovery was made by Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars instrument. SAM is the rover's onboard chemistry lab, and it's capable of identifying organic compounds — the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it.

SAM apparently spotted something interesting in a soil sample Curiosity's huge robotic arm delivered to the instrument recently. 

The rover team won't be ready to announce just what SAM found for several weeks yet. 

The scientists want to check and double-check the results, to make sure they're for real.