The Atlantic
Scientists Really, Really Want a Piece of Mars
A new NASA rover has jump-started an intense effort to finally bring home a pristine sample from the red planet.
Updated at 2:06 p.m. ET on Feb. 19, 2021.
When Mike Zolensky saw the night sky over the Australian desert glow red in June of 2010, he knew: The long-awaited object had plunged through the atmosphere and fallen to Earth.
Zolensky, a curator of astromaterials, and dozens of others leapt into action. The team dispatched a helicopter to find the fallen object in the darkness. At daybreak, elders from the local indigenous population arrived to check whether it had landed on any sacred sites. The next visitors wore helmets and protective gear, should the object explode, and carried spermicidal spray, in case it had cracked, releasing something alive. On top of everything else, they all had to watch out for kangaroos. “They’re all over the place,” Zolensky told me.