Much interesting NASA news this week. Today, Phoenix has found water in a Mars soil sample.

“We have water,” said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. “We’ve seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted.” (From NASA)

Yesterday, NASA announced that Cassini had identified a liquid ethane lake on
Saturn’s moon Titan. This makes Titan the only place in the solar system except Earth that is known to have liquid on its surface.

There are lots of awe-inspiring images on NASA’s site and the Cassini ones are particularly fascinating. Saturn and its moons must be the all time favourite space pictures, what with Saturn being the most photogenic planet by a few light-years.

But this picture is pretty good, too. A planet with surface water and water vapour and everything. Looks good enough to move to.

from Ciclops.org - earth and moon