NASA says it could be another 20 years before humans touch down on Mars, but in a sense, the Mars Society has been exploring the red planet for more than a decade – in Utah. Photo: Csilla Orgel, a geologist of Crew 125 EuroMoonMars B mission, makes her way back to the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in the Utah desert March 3, 2013. The MDRS aims to investigate the feasibility of a human exploration of Mars and uses the Utah desert's Mars-like terrain to simulate working conditions on the red planet. Scientists, students and enthusiasts work together developing field tactics and studying the terrain. All outdoor exploration is done wearing simulated spacesuits and carrying air supply packs and crews live together in a small communication base with limited amounts of electricity, food, oxygen and water. Everything needed to survive must be produced, fixed and replaced on site. (Photo by Jim Urquhart/Reuters)

In this handout photo released by Kooperativ Telegram Channel, flames and smoke rise from the scene after a warplane crashed into a residential area in Yeysk, Russia, Monday, October 17, 2022. The Russian military says one of its warplanes has crashed near an apartment building in Yeysk, a port city on the Sea of Azov, after experiencing engine failure on takeoff. The crash ignited a huge fire, killing at least four people, leaving six missing and injuring 21 others, eight of whom were in grave condition. One of the pilots, right, descends on a parachute. (Photo by Kooperativ Telegram Channel via AP Photo)

A man takes a picture of the mural painted by the street artist Harry Greb depicting the Italian music composer Ennio Morricone, a day after the 91-year-old composer's death, on July 7, 2020 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images)

“The pygmy hippopotamus (Choeropsis liberiensis or Hexaprotodon liberiensis) is a large mammal native to the forests and swamps of western Africa (the specific name liberiensis means “of Liberia”, as this is where the vast majority live). The pygmy hippo is reclusive and nocturnal. It is one of only two extant species in the Hippopotamidae family, the other being its much larger cousin the common hippopotamus”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Monifa, a one month old baby Pygmy Hippopotamus takes a morning bath at Taronga Zoo on November 7, 2008 in Sydney, Australia. Monifa is the first Pygmy Hippopotamus to be born at Taronga Zoo in the past twenty three years. (Photo by Sergio Dionisio/Getty Images)

A member of the “Sibspas” Siberian search and rescue group dressed as Santa Claus (R), waits for his team mate, dressed as Father Frost, the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus, as he climbs the rock named “The Fourth Stolb” (the Fourth Pillar) at the Stolby national nature reserve during a training session of the Russian Emergencies Ministry, outside the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia December 15, 2015. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

Reuters South Africa-based photographer Juda Ngwenya who documented Nelson Mandela's historic rise to power died on Wednesday. Here: Prostitutes wait at a bar in a plush northern suburb of Johannesburg August 22, 2002. (Photo by Juda Ngwenya/Reuters)

Participants perform a dragon dance as they march during a lantern parade marking the start of a month- long “Lotus Lantern Festival” to celebrate the upcoming Buddha' s birthday, in Seoul on April 29, 2017 Buddha' s birthday falls on May 3. (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP Photo)

Giraffes doing the splits to get a drink of water from the watering hole at the Zimanga Private Game Reserve in South Africa on March 31, 2022. (Photo by Hendri Venter/Animal News Agency)