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16 Then the words Steve had been waiting for from the flight team:
“Surface, Flight. Spirit is yours.”
17 Spirit shook off her airbags and stretched her solar wings to charge
her batteries. The scientists couldn’t wait for her to start snapping
pictures. From Mars orbiter photos, Gusev Crater, her landing spot,
appeared to be a ninety-five-mile-wide lakebed with a river channel
feeding into it. Scientists thought Gusev was their best shot at finding
signs of water.

18 And there on the screen was the first image from Mars.
19 Steve gasped. The colors were so perfect, and the details so sharp, it
was like being there. “It works, man . . . It works,” he muttered.
20 The red, rocky expanse resembled the Mojave Desert, with windblown
dust and small, dark rocks casting shadows in the afternoon sun. The area
was flat, with no big boulders or hills.

21 Could this be what a Martian lakebed looked like up close?
22 Scientists wouldn’t learn more until Spirit, the mobile geologist,
started driving, digging, poking, and analyzing the dust and rocks. It took
days to maneuver Spirit off her landing pad. Then the rover drivers
directed Spirit toward a small pyramid-shaped rock, which the scientists
called Adirondack, about 10 feet (3 m) straight ahead.

expanse An expanse is a very large area of land, sea, or sky.
resembled If two things or people resembled each other, they looked like each other.

Steve Squyres, center,
reacts as NASA
administrator Sean
O’Keefe, left, looks on
as they get a signal
from the Mars rover
Spirit after she landed.

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