Long before dogs and monkeys, fruit flies led the way. In February 1947, a V-2 rocket carried them more than 100 km up, beyond the conventional edge of space. Their capsule parachuted back down and they were recovered alive. The goal was to study how radiation affects living organisms.
A large share of Earth's water molecules formed in the interstellar cloud that existed before the Sun was even born, more than 4.6 billion years ago. You are literally drinking a cosmic fossil.
By day, the Martian sky looks butterscotch because of fine dust hanging in the air. But at dusk, those same grains scatter blue light forward, creating a bluish glow around the Sun. Rovers have photographed these blue sunsets: the exact reverse of what we see on Earth.