Mars geologist preps for historic drilling

A year after embarking on its 292.5-million-mile journey to Mars, NASA's Perseverance rover is readying to collect its first Martian rock sample.

Since its February arrival, the robotic geologist and its helicopter sidekick Ingenuity have been exploring the deepest and most ancient layers of exposed bedrock across a 1.5-square-mile patch of the 28-mile-wide Jezero Crater, which was a large lake wh...