Christian Elliott

I'm just going to say that again for emphasis.

Some of the oldest rocks in the solar system.

There aren't that many places we can find four-plus-billion-year-old rocks that help us understand how the solar system itself formed.

We definitely can't study that period of time on Earth because we've got plate tectonics here that's constantly shuffling up the rocks, recycling Earth's crust.

Yeah, to add one more anecdote, I remember the Opportunity Rover's final message to NASA, which it sent during a planetary dust storm.

It was translated as, my battery is low and it's getting dark.

And I remember people crying real tears for Opportunity, or Oppie.

The science team sent the rover the Billie Holiday song, I'll Be Seeing You, on its final day.

Yet people just really care about these robots, and the science team does too.

Remember, at the beginning, Katie was a grad student.

She didn't feel super emotionally invested in curiosity.

She just thought it was cool.

Till one day when everything changed.

Katie said each Mars rover becomes sort of like a family member for the team that controls it.

They spend so much time together and the team kind of projects personality onto the rover.

They've had the rovers sing happy birthday to themselves.

It's an inanimate object, of course, and they know that.

But still.

Now we talked to Katie and Hovard back in March.

I'm happy to report Perseverance is still exploring Mars.