Life on Mars
I posted this a while back:
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover finds possible signs of ancient Red Planet life
The rover also found dozens of millimeter-sized splotches, each surrounded by a black ring and mimicking the appearance of leopard spots. These rings contain iron and phosphate, which are also seen on Earth as a result of microbe-led chemical reactions.
"These spots are a big surprise," David Flannery, an astrobiologist and member of the Perseverance science team from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, said in a statement. "On Earth, these types of features in rocks are often associated with the fossilized record of microbes living in the subsurface."
Note the earth like microbe reference.
Getting back to my original gripe, NASA has sent 7 landers or rovers to Mars successfully since Viking. Not a single one has been equiped to test for microbial life. None have had a drill that could go under the surface a meter or two and see what's down there. WTF? Maybe the above discovery will create some interest in doing that? More likely they'll create a drill to look underground for the fucking conditions to support microbial life.