The Atacama Desert in Chile. It's the closest you'll get to Mars without hopping into a rocketship.
And it has all kinds of interesting microbes. And 9% of the genetic fragments found belonged to species unknown to science. So far unknown to science that we can't identify their relatives.
Not only that, but these fragments could not be detected by certain sensors.
Namely...the ones we have sent to Mars.
Meaning that we may be missing signs of life on Mars because we sent the wrong sensors. Or because we haven't yet miniaturized the ones needed. If so, then we have to be careful with that sample return mission...
...because there may well be life or fossils on Mars, we just can't see them. Yet.
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