Hooray for science! Wooh!

Nasa's Mars rover Opportunity has now been on the surface of Mars for 8000 Martian days (8.5 Earth years) and has recently located a crater.  Today's Guardian has an item about it.  The article talks about how 817 component images have been spliced together, etc., but the picture at the top of the article is so measly that you're inclined to just look at it, shrug your shoulders in a 'meh' sort of way, then click away to read something else.

However, in the comments, some enlightened soul has given the link to the image.  And it's unbelievable.  You can scroll around in the image and enhance it to get detail in the distance.  I'm utterly speechless.

Because I'm sitting on my sofa, at home, looking at the surface of another planet.  The surface of Another Planet.  From my sofa.  By just clicking a few buttons on a keyboard.

We are so living in the future, people, and we don't realise it.

So, my gift to you this endlessly rainy Sunday lunchtime, while waiting for the British Grand Prix to start or Murray to crash out of his first Wimbledon final, is to have your mind blown by clicking on this link and staring in wonder at the surface of another planet.

Hooray for science!  Wooh!