Mars Update–It’s Raining Rovers!: The second Mars Rover–Opportunity–safely crashed down onto the planet surface over the weekend, giving the Jet Propulsion Lab pencil-necks something to cheer about after Rover #1–Spirit–went on the fritz last week. Opportunity landed smack in the middle of a crater–a “300 million mile hole-in-one”–according to one scientist, and everyone is already ooohing and ahhhing over the pics the souped-up golf cart is sending back. Scientists are preparing to roll Opportunity off the lander in the next few weeks. And they’ll be getting very little sleep because at the same time they will be re-writing crucial elements of Spirit’s software, in the hopes of getting Spirit rolling again. So it’s going to be pretty slow, Rover-wise, for the next few weeks…..



The Other Side of Mars: Note the chimney, a vestige of Opportunity’s former life as a pot-bellied stove….

(Photo: NASA)