The martian rover has taken its first soil sample, & the NASA geeks are extremely happy. Its like watching the plot of a movie unfold. Very cool stuff.

"Scientists were also surprised by how little the soil was disturbed when Spirit's robotic arm pressed the Moessbauer spectrometer's contact plate directly onto the patch being examined. Microscopic images from before and after that pressing showed almost no change. "I thought it would scrunch down the soil particles," Squyres said. "Nothing collapsed. What is holding these grains together?"