Thank you! Don't expect much because JPL/the government is quite strict on what you can say, so I'm not allowed to share anything that hasn't been greenlit for public release. The press releases tend to lag the rover activities by a week or two. The best place for regular updates on the rovers is the blog page:

Link to the Curiosity rover mission updates blog

Link to the Perseverance rover mission updates blog

Yes, you're right that bluish tone to the sky is false colour. The true Martian sky is a dusty beige but turns blueish-white at sunset.

It's all virtual/remote actually, it's only in the first month or so after landing that JPL actually flies out all the people to California. But yeah it's awesome. I'm doing it alongside my PhD.

Thank you! It's more like a student internship than a job ;)

Which of the two images are you talking about?

So for the past 10 years Curiosity has been climbing its way through a stack of clay-rich rock (mudstones, siltstones) that is hundreds of metres thick. Scientists think this was deposited at the bottom of a large lake that may have persisted for hundreds of thousands of years (or longer!) before eventually drying out, around 3.5 billion years ago. We think this ancient lake had all the required conditions to support life, although the mission wasn't equipped to search for direct evidence for fossil life (it's harder than you think).

Now, though, as we ascend upwards (getting later and later into the lake's history), we're seeing the beginning of major environmental change. The rocks now tell us the lake levels had dropped and sand dunes had begun to migrate onto the lakebed. Perhaps this increase in aridity reflects the loss of Martian atmosphere, or perhaps simply changes in regional climate. We'll have to wait and see what the rover finds :)

Source: As of like a week ago I now work on the Perseverance rover team. If you have any questions about the Curiosity or Perseverance or Mars in general, feel free to ask!

Hey guys, looking for a history podcast recommendation. Mike Duncan's History of Rome was my first ever history podcast, I loved it and when that ended I switched straight to History of Byzantium and loved that even more. I've reached the end of that podcast so I am now 450 episodes deep into narrative history. The year is 1180 and I don't want to stop, I want to continue the story, in chronological order...

So I'm looking for a podcast I can binge that

1. is set in Europe or the Middle East

2. narrative format (e.g. year by year storytelling)

3. begins at OR includes the latter half of the 12th century (1150-1200 AD), so I can jump straight to where I left off

4. preferably follows a similar format to HoR/HoB - so, military history but also economic, social, religion etc

5. I actually preferred HoB's more academic approach - interviews with leading historians interspersed through the narrative, so if possible would love that

Any ideas?