[Thursday, June 2, 2005] On its 449th martian day, or sol (April 29, 2005), NASA's Mars rover Opportunity woke up approximately an hour after sunset and took this picture of the fading twilight as the stars began to come out.

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[Thursday, June 2, 2005] A dust devil spins across the surface of Gusev Crater just before noon on Mars. NASA's Spirit rover took the series of images in this spectacular 21-frame animation with its navigation camera on the rover's martian day, or sol, 486 (May 15, 2005).

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[Thursday, June 2, 2005] NASA has given the goahead to a project to put a lander on the far-northern Martian plains. NASA's Phoenix lander is designed to examine the site for potential habitats for water ice, and to look for possible indicators of life, past or present.

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[Friday, June 3, 2005] On 17 May 2005, the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) acquired its 200,000th image since the spacecraft began orbiting Mars on 12 September 1997.

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[Friday, June 3, 2005] Editor's note: "NASA issued a press release yesterday regarding the Mars Phoenix Lander mission. I had some serious issues with what was - and what was not included in the press release with regard to the actual cost of the mission."

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[Friday, June 3, 2005] Spirit has been working on Mars for more than 500 sols! This week the rover completed its close-up observations of "Larry's Outcrop" and drove back toward "Methuselah," looking for a passable way up to the summit.

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[Friday, June 3, 2005] ASU's Mars research team took center stage at China's national celebration of science and technology, and tens of thousands of Chinese citizens - including schoolchildren, scientists, engineers and senior members of government - took notice.

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[Sunday, June 5, 2005] By using new, high spatial resolution infrared data from NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, researchers have concluded that region on the surface of Mars known to contain olivine-rich rocks is actually 4 times larger than previously estimated.

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[Monday, June 6, 2005] NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission engineers and managers cheered when images from the Martian surface confirmed Opportunity successfully escaped from a sand trap.

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[Tuesday, June 7, 2005] Following in-depth analyses performed after the deployment of the first MARSIS antenna boom on board Mars Express, ESA has decided to proceed with the deployment of the second 20-metre antenna boom.

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[Wednesday, June 8, 2005] Two Dartmouth researchers have weighed in on the debate over whether the presence of methane gas on Mars indicates life on the red planet.

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[Wednesday, June 8, 2005] The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter detected the unique phenomenon with its ultraviolet instrument called SPICAM in August 2004. French, U.S. and Russian scientists are reporting the discovery today in Nature.

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[Thursday, June 9, 2005] Today is something of a landmarks for us. As of the end of today's MER-B Command Approval Meeting we will have planned one thousand sols on the surface of Mars.

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[Thursday, June 9, 2005] "The Steering Group was chartered to analyze the priorities for precursor investigations, measurements, and technology/infrastructure demonstrations that would have a significant effect on the cost and risk of the first human mission to Mars."

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[Sunday, June 12, 2005] Success! Opportunity made forward progress to free itself from the Purgatory Dune! Another exciting achievement for the week was the healthy return of data from the Mini-TES instrument, which the mission team turned back on for the first time in 47 sols.

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[Sunday, June 12, 2005] "Exploring Mars, it seems, involves nearly constant peril, and the dust storm season is starting to loom as the next significant one we're going to have to face. We'll see what happens."

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[Monday, June 13, 2005] On May 19th, 2005, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this stunning view as the Sun sank below the rim of Gusev crater on Mars.

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[Tuesday, June 14, 2005] After last week's robotic arm work at "Larry's Outcrop," Spirit headed over to a rock called "Backstay." The rover paused over the weekend to take a closer look at its solar panels and magnets.

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[Wednesday, June 15, 2005] Luck, it has been said, favors the well prepared. That explains, perhaps, the fortune of the plucky Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity -- and their creators, including Cornell Professor Steve Squyres, scientific leader of the NASA mission, back on Earth.

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[Wednesday, June 15, 2005] 'Martian bread and green tomato jam', 'Spirulina gnocchis' and 'Potato and tomato mille-feuilles' are three delicious recipes that two French companies have created for ESA and future space explorers to Mars and other planets.

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[Thursday, June 16, 2005] 12 women recently completed 60 days of voluntary bedrest in order to simulate the physiological effects of weightlessness. The research team is now actively seeking twelve new volunteers to enable them to continue and enhance the research.

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[Thursday, June 16, 2005] Spirit's on the move. We've finished up our work in the whole Larry's Lookout/Jibsheet/Methuselah region and begun the long climb up and around to the south side of Husband Hill.

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[Friday, June 17, 2005] The second 20-metre antenna boom of the MARSIS instrument on board Mars Express was successfully - and smoothly - deployed, confirmed today by the ground team at ESA's European Space Operations Centre.

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[Saturday, June 18, 2005] The terms "exploration" and "discovery" have been headlined since President Bush announced new goals for NASA and the nation in 2004. The renewed emphasis on exploration raises the question of the relation between exploration, discovery and science.

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[Saturday, June 18, 2005] "Spirit then drove away, pulled over to a scenic overlook to take some high-resolution imaging of "Methuselah," and drove onward. Spirit's next goal is to drive to the top of the next ridge."

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[Sunday, June 19, 2005] These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, show Coprates Chasma, a major trough in the Valles Marineris canyon system.

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[Wednesday, June 22, 2005] MARSIS, the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding onboard ESA's Mars Express orbiter, is now fully deployed, has undergone its first checkout and is ready to start operations around the Red Planet.

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[Monday, June 27, 2005] "Why do we explore? As this essay series suggests, there are many answers. But since the beginning of the Space Age one of the chief drivers has been the search for life beyond Earth."

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[Monday, June 27, 2005] Spirit started this week by completing two remote sensing sols on June 18 and 19 (sols 518 and 519). The rover made observations with its panoramic camera, navigation camera, and miniature thermal emission spectrometer.

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