NASA reports on its Web site that the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, “has eyed an oddly shaped, dark rock, which may be a meteorite and is about two feet across, on the surface of the Red Planet on July 18, 2009.”
Those crazy cats at NASA named the rock “Block Island” after the tiny resort island off Rhode Island. In typical tech-heady fashion, the NASA site blandly reports, “Scientists will test the rock with the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer to get composition measurements and to confirm if indeed it is a meteorite.”
Come on, guys. You’re NASA and all that, but it’s OK to get a little excited now and then. Live a little.
Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech.