Upcoming missions like NASA’s Mars 2020 might already have the technology to find tiny micro-fossils on the Red Planet. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

When most people imagine hunting for fossils, they probably think of finding dinosaur bones laid down in layers of rock. But the vast majority of life – and therefore fossils – across Earth’s history has been microorganisms. These tiny lifeforms, either plants, animals or fungi, can be smaller than the width of a human hair. But with the right too