Curiosity will go further, looking for carbon-based molecules, including methane, that are the building blocks of life.

They are programmed to take apart carbon-based molecules.

The carbon-based molecules, each made of about 40 to 50 atoms, were then planted into a gold surface, where they stuck up like telephone poles.

CH4 the starting material from which carbon-based organic molecules are generated there.

Plastics are made of long strands of carbon-based molecules known as polymers.

Even beyond carbon-based molecules, the principles were supposed to be universal.

Eventually, carbon-based molecules may push out metals and silicon even in high-performance applications.

For example, it is probably impossible to synthesize tetrahedrane, a carbon-based molecule with four faces.

Essentially, they are complex carbon-based molecules derived from formerly living organisms.

A much smaller fraction of the earth's matter is the carbon-based "organic" molecules of most interest to us.