Hello and welcome to the new incarnation of the Martian Chronicles blog! I’m really excited and honored to be part of the shiny new AGU blogosphere. If you’re a new reader, let me take a moment and let you know what to expect here at Martian Chronicles.

I write about a lot of different things because I’m interested in a lot of different things. As you might have guessed, Mars is pretty high on that list of interests. I’m involved in preparing for the next mars rover, Mars Science Laboratory, which launches next year, so when there is relevant news about the mission I’ll write about it here. I also help out with the color camera operations for the current rovers, so you can expect me to write about MER here too. But anything that interests me is really fair game, especially if it has to do with space exploration (robotic or human). Whenever I go to a conference, I try to take notes and post summaries on the blog: it helps me pay attention at the meeting and lets those who couldn’t attend hear my condensed version of the talks. Likewise, I occasionally get to go on fun geology field trips, and I try to share photos and explanations on the blog.

I also like debunking bad science, so from time to time I’ll poke at common misconceptions or ridiculous conspiracy theories or bad sci-fi. And speaking of sci-fi, I’m a voracious consumer of sci-fi and fantasy, and from time to time I post reviews of books, movies, videos games and TV-shows here. Often the review and the debunking go hand in hand, but sometimes I just want to share my thoughts on something I read for fun.

So, bottom line: if it interests me and I think it might also interest you, I’ll post about it here. Mostly that will mean planetary science and space exploration, but pretty much anything is fair game. I’m always looking for ideas, so if you have something you’d like me to write about just drop me a line and I’ll add it to my “to write” list!

Cover art for this blog's namesake, The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. If you haven't read this collection of stories, you really should!