* Astronomy

After five groundbreaking years exploring the Red Planet, the communications engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory pretty much know what they are getting when another downlink from Spirit or Opportunity arrives. They know that with a typical transmission comes about 10 megabits of engineering data, another 4 megabits of science data, and around 26 megabits of images. They also realise that after the information is amassed and analysed by the rovers' science teams that the most unique, scientifically exciting of that compiled data will be released via peer-reviewed papers, articles, science briefings and press releases.
To date, literally thousands of rover images have been analysed and discussed in detail. But the rovers have sent back about a quarter-million images. NASA decided this incongruity could be best addressed by making every single Mars rover image available to all who were interested -- and had Internet access.
Access to all that imagery brought the thrill of exploration to people around the world in a way never envisioned before the rovers began to roam the Red Planet. Now, the Mars Exploration Rovers have new life on the likes of "Second Life," "YouTube," online forums like "Unmannedspaceflight.com," and the social networking site "Facebook."

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