The good news from NASA last week about the extension of the Mars rover missions until September means that we get to see a lot more scenes like this one in the months ahead. I find it pretty cool, and I also am continually amazed at how much like parts of the southwest United States these parts of Mars resemble.

In the next few weeks the rover Spirit will head for the Columbia Hills, which look to be a kilometer or two away. Along the way it will send back more images of the surrounding terrain and the rock field. This is, of course, what the rovers were built to do — be our eyes on Mars. And our geological tools. While there’s nothing quite like walking the dusty plains ourselves, these are the next best thing until we can actually there sometime soon. (Really soon, I wish, but more likely decades away!)