NASA Says: Water on Mars!

Yawn.  Of course we knew that over a hundred years ago. But the canals! Where are the pics of the canals?

Stunning New Pics from Mars

Honk to Grandmére Mimi at Wounded Bird, who kindly forwarded these.

Shatner on Mars

I reckon most of you guys are already up to speed on this, but your Head Trucker is a little behind the times out here on the vast and trackless prairie - so it comes as news to him. William Shatner once again takes us where no man has gone before with this animated demonstration of how the Curiosity lander - wonderful name - touched down on the Red Planet last night.

A sky crane? OMG. If you saw it in a movie, you wouldn't believe it.

The Transit of Venus

As filmed by NASA in four different wavelengths of light. Won't happen again till 2117, so it's a rare and awesome sight.



Also, just for fun - this 1893 map of the Earth, which purports to show that the literal words of the Bible are superior to all scientific calculations. Right. Dude was totally serious, too.

Click to enlarge

And one last note:  Ray Bradbury, dean of science-fiction writers, died at age 91 on Tuesday.  He wrote many wonderful stories that I loved as a boy, including The Martian Chronicles, a 1950's vision of the first colonies on the Red Planet.

We know too damn much now to take them as probable fact, which is a pity.  But if you haven't ever read any of the stories in that collection - do.   They are classics of the genre, and Bradbury is a master storyteller who will keep your fingers turning the pages and will make your imagination bloom.

Mars Cars

A couple of years ago, I was touched by the plight of the valiant little Spirit rover, which after several years of brilliant success exploring the Red Planet and reporting back to Earth with fantastic pics and data, became stuck in a sand trap, and finally expired there, its solar panels covered with light-blocking dust. Of course, this is anthropomorphizing in the worst way, and it's silly of me. But I was touched just the same.

Here are some very cool vids about Spirit and its brother hot-rod, Opportunity, who is still going about his lonely chores up there.

Artist's concept of Spirit on the Martian surface

First-ever picture of Earth taken from another planet.
Now what was that big problem you were talking about?

P. S. - If I'm silly enough to care about the death of a robot, I'm also silly enough to believe there are canals on Mars - which, as late as my grammar school days, there were still science books in the library that acknowledged the possibility they exist.  And what are possibilities, after all, but the stuff that dreams are made on?  Like us.

I'm not much for science fiction now, but growing up I drank deeply at the trough - wonderful adventures in dream-laden books like Red Planet by Heinlein and The Martian Chronicles by Bradbury.  So don't try to confuse me with science; they just haven't looked in the right places yet, maybe.  I much prefer to imagine the ancient canals still filling with glistening, life-giving water every Martian spring, flowing amid the ruined towers of the cities, where the inscrutable eyes of the old ones watch in the dreamtime.

Do you grok me, brother?