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Mystery Pits on Mars That Nobody Can Explain NASA's Curiosity rover has been exploring Mars since 2012 — fourteen years on the Red Planet — and it is still finding things nobody can explain. Its latest puzzle: broad, shallow pits, about one centimetre wide, scattered through the bedrock of Mount Sharp. In a mission update, Michelle Minitti, deputy principal investigator of the rover's MAHLI camera, described the features as "unlike quite anything we have seen in the past." That is a striking statement from a team that has spent over a decade studying Martian rock up close. Normally, a pit like this has a simple explanation: a small pebble sits in the rock for ages and eventually weathers out, leaving a hole behind. But these pits break that rule. They are broader and shallower than the usual kind, and there is no object anywhere nearby that could once have filled them. Wind does not explain them either. Some headlines joked that the pits look like tiny "footp...

A Microbe That Could Build Homes on Mars Building a home on Mars sounds like pure science fiction, but a tiny microbe might one day do the heavy lifting. Researchers at Pioneer Labs in California have created a modified microbe, known as sPL.001, that can grow using materials similar to Martian soil. That is no small trick. Real Martian soil is laced with perchlorates, toxic chemicals that make it hostile to most Earth life. The engineered microbe, however, can thrive on a diet of prepared Mars-like soil, water and air — ingredients that settlers could realistically gather or produce on the Red Planet. While it grows, sPL.001 produces something remarkably useful: bioplastic. This living material factory could supply the raw material for everyday cups, feedstock for 3D printers, and even building materials for shelters and habitats. The bigger idea is independence. Every kilogram shipped from Earth to Mars costs a fortune, so future settlers who can grow what they need locally — in...