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The news is considered so profound (or cool, if you prefer) that scientists were flown from JPL in Pasadena to Washington to announce today that a huge question about Mars is now settled: the planet did have liquid water in abundance. It doesn't mean life existed, but knowing there was water on the ground -- not just in ice caps or under the surface -- is "a giant leap" toward solving the mystery, NASA's deputy administrator says in the New York Times. He's quoted in the L.A. Times story saying that the rover Opportunity "landed on an area of Mars where liquid water once drenched the surface."
For those who prefer to ponder implications via audio, Kitty Felde had someone from the Planetary Society on KPCC today, along with The Martian Chronicles author Ray Bradbury. Audio here. Don't ponder it too far: Gregg Easterbrook blogged yesterday on what it means that the most ambitious SETI project ever turned up zilch. He analyzes four possibilities, each "spooky in its own way":
1. We are alone.
2. There are others, but we will never meet them.
3. We are children.
4. We are the first.
And this, also on the Easterblogg:: "Here it appears to have taken about 600 million years for natural selection to progress from the first animal to the first intelligence, but less than 100 years for society to progress from the Gatling gun to the ability to destroy itself using nuclear weapons."