1. NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on Mars Thursday and sent back its first photo a few minutes later. It’ll use a special laser to vaporize tiny rocks, analyze the Martian soil, and look for signs of ancient life. It also has a small helicopter that’ll cruise around up there, and two microphones to capture true audio on Mars for the first time. (“Scientific American” did a rundown of what to expect next. And here are five more weird things it took along.)
2. In similar-but-opposite news: Biologists accidentally found life under Antarctica. They threaded a tiny camera down a 3,000-foot borehole in an ice shelf to look at the seabed. And it landed on a boulder with 16 sea sponges and 22 tiny animals that look like barnacles. No one’s sure how they survive there.
3. Researchers at Harvard claim the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs WASN’T an asteroid . . . it was a comet. Asteroids are rocks, and comets are mostly frozen gas and space dust. Other experts are skeptical though, and still think an asteroid is more likely.
4. And a team of sleep scientists found you can still communicate with people while they’re dreaming. Volunteers were able to hear and answer questions, even while they were technically asleep. The study involved people who can “lucid dream,” which is when you’re aware you’re dreaming, and can even control what happens in them.
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