Organic chemistry technically just means carbon chemistry. In biology carbon is the backbone molecule for all life/biological chemistry, although there are the

Organic chemistry technically just means carbon chemistry. In biology carbon is the backbone molecule for all life/biological chemistry, although there are theories that on other planets/ecosystems other similar chemicals, such as silicon or germanium (both able to form 4 bonds, like carbon - same column of the periodic table) may be able to fill the same role. From the scientists perspective discovering 'organic molecules' is important because basically when you get down to the nuts and bolts of what carbon molecules are, the point is that on a planet with an environment such as mars', without 'biology' as an underlying mechanism for the generation of these molecules, there shouldn't be any, I.e. they will all get degraded by the environment without some process churning them out. That doesn't mean it's the only way that they can be made, just a theory that we have for their source. The presence of methane (organic and usually biological in origin) in the Martian atmosphere has long been suspected of being persistent (ir should otherwise escape/be broken down) because of renewal due to biological activity however that is far from clear and more likely scenarios put the gas escaping from geological processes under the surface as the cause. The long and short is thus that the discovery of organic molecules may be a tantalising clue to the presence of biological processes, either now or at some time in the past, however there would likely remain many alternative hypotheses to rule out and it would be (extremely) unlikely that any announcement could point to the existence of a form of 'life' on mars due to the equipment they have available. Interesting nonetheless