Two rovers and a barren world

As this is being written, two semi-intelligent machines are exploring the rims of dune-filled craters on opposite sides of a barren planet. The fourth planet from Sol has always occupied the imagination of not a few individuals centuries before Percival Lowell suggested the existence of a highly advanced civilization on its reddish surface. With the Spirit and Opportunity landing last January, and their investigations subsequently confirming the planet's watery past, Mars has once again pushed its way into the edges of human consciousness. No doubt with no small help from the internet and the latest communication technology. The idea of human beings walking and perhaps living on another world, apart from Gaia's moon, has again been the subject of much speculation among experts and laypeople. Sometimes providing an easy way out from all the tedious concerns of existence on Earth. But always giving everybody a glimpse of what is possible for human civilization.

(thanks to astrogeology.usgs.gov and www.jpl.nasa.gov for the pics)