I have been gathering some mind-blowing news about our solar system from the Net this summer.

On May 25, 2008, the day NASA's unmanned spacecraft Phoenix landed on Mars, I think I read about it on the applicable Metafilter post, which is where I think I probably found my first link to this picture here on the right, though I have been unable to retrace my steps exactly in the annals of my extensive bookmark systems.

At any rate, this is the sunset across the Gusev Crater on May 19, 2005.

Imagine my surprise to learn that such unremarkable snapshots of the arid diorama of another planet have been available to at least some human eyes for three years already.

On July 17, 2008, some blog post--my records fail me again--pointed me to another NASA web offering, an animated video of the moon orbiting around the spinning earth that incorporates real photographs from a deep space probe.  Watch and feel the cold clear distance shrink in comparison to the vast solid orbs.

On July 24th, Matt Drudge linked to a Daily Mail story about Apollo 14 astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell having claimed that he has always been privy to the truth of the matter about aliens: we are in contact with them and may be in possession of fragments of their technology. Consider the source (heavy metal magazine Kerrang!'s online radio show), and do note the imminence of the X-Files movie at the time, but then wonder...what if it was true?

What if it was true, what if it was true?  This Thursday, July 31, 2008, NASA announced that they have used the Phoenix to perform tests proving that there is ice...water...in the Martian soil. 

Here on the web, as I read stories about space, there are always commenters to give voice to the everpresent thought that none of what we are told is true.  That it's all fake.  Even if THAT were true (and I wouldn't be surprised) I think we would still be lucky to live in a time where the deceitful overlords of our lives were making elaborate, fact-flourishing displays that directed our minds to the backdrop and boundary of the world like they do.  When you know how to harness electricity to power your machines, and you know how to use corporeal machines to capture ideas as information as electricity, I think you can be hopeful that you will be able to learn all the phase changes of reality one day.    

Oh, but it would be a great day if an extraterrestrial intelligence revealed itself to human beings, or if human beings some day set foot on another perfectly arable planet!  Our free human habit of investigating and adjusting to as much reality as we can access and handle would lead us to a new comprehension.