The Brief

Since February 2021, the Perseverance rover has been exploring Mars' Jezero crater-a formation that was once Jezero Lakelooking for signs of ancient life. On Sept. 10, NASA announced that it may have hit pay dirt.

- By Jeffrey Kluger

In a now-dry river valley, the rover discovered a rock streaked in a range of strange colors-red, green, purple, and blue-flecked with poppy-seed-like dots and decorated with what the Perseverance scientists compared to dull yellow leopard spots. The rover's instruments confirmed that the red is iron-rich mud, the purple is iron and phosphorus, and the yellow and green are iron and sulfur. All of those