Carnival of Space #32

Carnival of Space #32 is now live at "Robot Guy," a blog I hadn't heard of before this week. Which is the point of blog carnivals -- go check it out to find your way to new destinations in the blogosphere. (Ugh. I absolutely hate that word. I have no love for "blog" either. It's an ugly word. I sure wish the medium had started out life with a more pleasant-sounding name.)

And, while I'm posting links, I'll mention that this week's Planetary Radio features an update on the Stardust@home project with Andrew Westphal -- are you one of the folks who successfully flagged a tiny mote of interstellar dust in the Stardust aerogel sample collectors? Amir Alexander has also written an update on the Stardust@home project.

Amir also wrote a summary of the latest findings from Venus Express. And A. J. S. Rayl checked in with her monthly Mars Exploration Rovers update, in which she explains how Spirit very nearly got stuck for good in a place named Tartarus that principal investigator Steve Squyres called -- I kid you not -- "a pit of torment."

Finally, we recently invited our members to reflect on the first 50 years of space and submit 50 to 250 words on what they think the next 50 years holds. Check out what they had to say.