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20 years ago today, the Mars Pathfinder rover, Sojourner, landed on the Red Planet.

Named for abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth, NASA’s Sojourner rover landed on Mars on July 4, 1997. Unlike previous landing systems that used conventional rockets to decelerate, the Sojourner rover used a parachute and a system of airbags to slow down before the rover dropped roughly 100 feet to the planet’s surface. This system comprised of the Pathfinder lander, which was renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station after successfully delivering the rover. Sagan, a major proponent of the exploration of Mars, passed away shortly after the Mars Pathfinder mission launched on its way to the Red Planet.

Sojourner then set about its mission to analyze nearby rocks on the surface. Compositional analysis revealed that silica was found in higher concentrations in rocks than the surrounding area. Being found in igneous rocks, such a presence of silica was a hint that Mars may have had a more interesting geological history than was previously thought. Sojourner also sent pictures of the Martian surface back to NASA, while Pathfinder took photographs of the Martian sky. Among the photos from Sojourner were images showing rounded pebbles and conglomerate rocks indicating that different types of soil had been mixed in the past—evidence of a formerly water-rich planet.

Originally scheduled to operate for 7 sols (1 sol is about 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth), Sojourner had the possibility of extending its mission to 30 sols. In total, Sojourner operated for 83 sols before communications were lost on September 27, 1997. In that time, it covered just over 100 meters of the Martian surface.

Learn more about Sojourner here: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/why-no-one-under-20-has-experienced-a-day-without-nasa-at-mars

Here’s to another 20 years exploring the surface of Mars!

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We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.

Jonathan Gottschall (via quotemadness)

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The things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist.

Ernest Hemingway (via quotemadness)

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She was an extraordinary woman, and I went to bed that night feeling like I was perhaps more than ordinary myself. This was the effect she had on me.

Khaled Hosseini (via quotemadness)

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From the Oct. 25, 1954 Animals feature: DIRECT TO CONSUMER—A California dairy farmer teaches his cats to sit up and beg when cows come home. This image opened the feature with the following caption: “Spattered with milk, Brownie and Squirrely jockey for favorable positions as Blackie (rear) momentarily corners stream of milk from cow’s udder.” (Nat Farbman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) #wildLIFEwednesday #catsofinstagram

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I chose not to choose life.

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One day, whether you are 14, 28 or 65, you will stumble upon someone who will start a fire in you that cannot die. However, the saddest, most awful truth you will ever come to find - is they are not always with whom we spend our lives.

Beau Taplin (via quotemadness)

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Lucille Ball, 1942

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the lesson will repeat itself until you learn from it.

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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.

Erich Fromm (via fyp-psychology)

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The problem with wanting,“ he whispered, his mouth trailing along my jaw until it hovered over my lips, "is that it makes us weak.

Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone (via booksqouted)

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Let’s allow ourselves space and error, hysteria and grief. Really, we must let the candle burn—pour gasoline on it if necessary. Creation is our gift and we are ill with it. It has sloshed about my bones and awakened me to stare at 5 a.m. walls.

Charles Bukowski, from a letter to John William Corrington featured in Screams From The Balcony: Selected Letters 1960 - 1970 (via heathenwoods)