The Opportunity rover (still running after five years despite being built for ninety-day mission) made the mega-Martian discovery when it spotted "Block Island" - a half-meter chunk of rock absolutely nothing like anything anywhere else on the planet so far. Because it probably isn't from the planet, with scientists saying it's a meteor which made Mars its final resting place.Opportunity will examine this second-order spacerock with its alpha-particle X-ray spectrometer to see what it's made of, and therefore where it came from. Those worried about the science-fiction effects of bathing an other-worldly artifact in radiation from such a polysyllabic device should remember that a) This is science, not fiction; b) It's on Mars anyway. If we do release some extra-planetary horror we're got a few hours to hire Bruce Willis.
That this happened at all is a triumph of human curiosity, coincidence, and extremely well put together space engineering: three factors we're going to need to become what we can. Here's hoping we keep up the effort in future space scheduling. (Daily Galaxy)
