About 45 minutes ago, Opportunity successfully landed on the opposite side of Mars that Spirit is on - just a couple hours after Spirit began communicating again in intelligable data bursts that NASA could use. So now, we've got two rovers on the face of Mars, two rovers sending back amazing pictures, interesting data, and scientific knowledge to be used for years (if not decades) to come.

It's simply an amazing feat and one that I've been watching for the past few weeks with great enthusiasm. To think that we could send off little rovers over 280 million miles each and have them both land on an unfamiliar terrain, begin exploration, and search for water, which might indicate previous life, is almost incomprehensible. No matter what you think about the U.S.' foreign policy, debt, or what not, it certainly makes me proud to be an American - part of the most advanced culture on the planet. And as they just said on NASAtv (yes, people do watch that station), we've now raised the world's success rate from 1 in 3 to 2 in 3 - as the European launched rover failed in its landing on Mars a few months ago.

It should definitely be interesting to see the pictures we get back from Opportunity, which landed on a plain, rather than in a crater. Next, we just have to send humans to Mars.

URL: Jet Propulsion Laboratory