“They”, some of them, were Americans. Others were of Asian, European, Indian, Polynesian or African origin. All were human. Good on them.

We, who just mere moments ago, in relative terms, were walking about on four legs and dodging the smaller scavenger dinosaurs (who though it was little consolation to our wee ancestors, would mostly be dead soon). Fast forward a few millions of years and we were still struggling to survive harsh and constantly changing conditions – surviving only because our brains had grown with the advent of a protein rich diet. We who, when our hisotry is looked at on any time-spiral of the history of just this planet, are an infinitesimal line that couldn’t be seen with the naked eye – we who are so very insignificant, have managed all this, along with all the bad.

Just a blink of the eye ago, we didn’t even have language to describe what we saw in the night skies and scant enough time to look at them anyways. And now we are wandering to these places with our probes, with our telescopes and even sending people to stay in the closest regions outside our atmosphere.

No matter the great evils our race is perpetuating, even today – this is a fucking brilliant time to be human. Though if we survive another blink, it should be an even better time to be human, or whatever we might be in a million years.

Being a spoiled-rotten American, I’ve come to expect – as an intrinsic right! – that a web post with the words “More info and picture here” should have, like, a link somewhere. Waaah!

What I do know for certain is that those mile-wide sinuous channels all over the moon, Mars, and Mercury aren’t any collapsed lava tubes. A mile-wide lava tube is physically impossible.

I have to say, though, my loudest wow over an LRO image will likely remain over the one that captured the Phoenix lander descending under its parachute.

The idea of the rovers trundling about over 10 minutes away is awesome. For Years. And we get to watch. Wow.