Martian Spirit

The Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars are still — amazingly — going strong. Spirit recently reached its goal of the summit of Husband Hill, in the Columbia Hills, after over 500 days of busy, science-filled trekking. The panorama above is the first taken from the summit in approximately true color. The picture at right is a tiny thumbnail of the enormous, 14,000+ pixel wide real thing. You can get the real thing by clicking on the thumbnail; it's spectacular and fascinating to peruse...

I've posted several times previously about this dynamic duo's outstanding performance, and what a great example they are of bargain-basement space science. Especially when compared to the manned missions...

Home Sweet Home

Ah, I'm finally back home after that loooong (mostly business) trip. It feels so good to be back home with my wife and four-footed and feathered children. Aside from one scare (a wildfire a few miles away), nothing untoward happened at home in my absence. There were even a few very pleasant surprises: our pampas grass has erupted in bloom — many on each of our two plants, our red fountain grass (now that it's protected from rabbits by a fence) has exploded, and our citrus trees are all in great shape. Virtually all our plants are showing very healthy new growth due to the nice rains we had early this year. Our aleppo (Italian Stone) pines have an especially hearty new growth — about eighteen inches of "candlestick" on the most vigorous of them.

Expect some posting to resume immediately...