This story was originally published in our May/June 2023 issue as "Blue Marble, Red Planet." Click here to subscribe to read more stories like this one.
For the first time in the history of our solar system, humans are collecting rocks from another planet. Since the Perseverance rover landed on Mars in early 2021, NASA scientists have been guiding it across the Jezero Crater, an ancient martian lakebed. When the rover reaches a site of geological interest, it drills out a small rock sample and seals it in a tube.
These bits of the martian surface (around 2.5 inches long and roughly as thick as your pinkie) are expected to arrive on our planet in 2033. It’s the latest in a series of technologically breathtaking missions that have opened Mars to us since 1965, when the Mariner 4 spacecraft sent back the first bleak photographs of the planet’s surface.
So far, our efforts on Mars haven’t answered the big question: Are we alone in the universe? Instead, we’ve discovered in the Red Planet a mirror to our own blue marble. Mars’ windswept rocks hold clues to the first billion years of Earth’s history — the very period when life emerged here.
