In 2011, the United States launched an Atlas V rocket to look for life on Mars. Aboard was the rover Curiosity, which would explore the planet, searching for signs of life. In 2023, Irish writer Paul Lynch won the Booker Prize for his dystopian novel Prophet Song, a fictional account of tyranny and war described as "soul shattering."

On November 26, 2011, the NASA Curiosity rover launched to Mars. Curiosity was the biggest and most powerful rover anyone had ever sent to the Red Planet. The two-ton science laboratory is about the size of a small SUV.