It’s about 0127 PST, and I'm watching the NASA channel live showing us the MER mission control room as the first batch of images comes in from Opportunity, the second of two amazing Mars rovers.
The terrain surrounding Opportunity in Meridiani Planum, is so amazing looking. Unlike the rocky surface we’ve grown accustomed to seeing on all the Mars images we typically see, Meridiani is very smooth. But, there are these amazing outcroppings of rock structures in view that are very exciting to the scientists, and to me!
I really wish JPL would give us an audio track that’s just the comm chatter, without the commentators. They’re trying to explain things, but I’d really rather just listen to the scientists and engineers.
Spirit, after getting a little sick, seems to be doing much better. Once again, congratulations to the JPL team. You’ve done amazing work, and have made me very proud.
Check out the mission at the MER Mission Home Page. They’ve gotten over four billion hits in the last 24 days. That’s about 1929 hits per second!