I realize this is a bit off topic but I felt it was worth posting.

As we are all enjoying our Memorial Day Weekend something special is happening on the planet Mars. A spacecraft called Phoenix has landed on the planet Mars, on a mission to explore the region around the north pole of that planet.

Even though the space program has been a reality for my entire life, these kind of events still amaze me. Imagine, we have launched a craft from Earth, sent it over tens of millions of miles and actually landed on another planet !

Considering that more that half of the missions to Mars end in failure, this is quite an accomplishment and in an era of seemingly endless bad news is something for us all to celebrate.

They have successfully transmitted the first pictures live from Mars (or live plus the 3 minutes or so to get the signal from there to here)

Click here for images