Sojourner Truth
Ares Vallis
MARS

July 7, 1997

Mom,

I'm so cold! Yesterday it was around minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit. The high was about 10 degrees F. Tonight it's supposed to reach about minus 105 degrees F. We're not in Kansas anymore! I tried to take my picture of Carl but ended up with a picture of Carl's airbags, the things that helped him land, retracting in a high puffy clump. You couldn't even see Carl through the fluffy things. I told him with airbags like that he deserved his stuffy name.

The IMP took pictures of me too, as I met Barnacle Bill. Bill is 8" tall and looks like he spent his teen years with a bad case of acne. I walked right up to him and said, "Hi. I'm Sojourner for the truth." Mom, he kissed me! IMP, of course, caught a picture of that. I guess Bill was happy to finally find an E.T. on Mars. But then, I'm so cute!

The temperatures were warmer than our detectors liked and created noise in our spectra. How can these temperatures be too warm for anything? At least my APXS seems to be working perfectly in spite of the frigid conditions.

Tomorrow I'm to meet another Martian named Yogi. I'm to study the soil composition in his moat. Isn't that romantic? I'm glad my APXS is so trustworthy.

The Earth Team says the bright reddish color of the soil around here points to oxidized iron in Mars's surface materials. They say Mars's surface is rusting. They think the floods here were so catastrophic they would have filled up the Mediterranean basin on Earth.

Love,

S.T.