| A ROCK PENJING is a scenic landscape rock planting on a tray, an art form started in China thousands of years ago. It is also known as Bonkei in Japanese Romanji. It is an ancient tradition used to explore and reflect other worlds past, present and future... |
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I paint some rocks for my Mars Penjing. The rocks come from my favorite pet store. I buy stuff for my pets there all the time. |
| I have to mix some water, cement and mud red paint to anchor the rocks to the tray. |  |
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I use regular playground sand and red aquarium sand for the Mars soil. I get the playground sand from the hardware store and the aquarium sand from the pet store. |
| I glue some of my space toys and astronaut models to the Mars landscape. |  |
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I must spray a clear acrylic finish on the Mars Penjing to anchor the sand to my project. When the clear acrylic finish dries, I will paint some highlights to the landscape to make it look realistic. This is alot of hard work! |
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TO PHONE HOME FROM MARS! by Ernie Havener A long, long time ago Mars may have looked like Earth. However Mars lost its atmosphere. The days and years on Mars are longer than they are on Earth because Mars is farther from the Sun. People wanted to learn more about Mars so they sent probes to Mars. NASA sent a Rocky 7 land rover called Sojourner that landed on Mars July 4, 1997. Rocky 7 was named after Sojourner Truth, an African-American who lived during the Civil War time. She was like Martin Luther King Jr. She made it her mission to "travel up and down the land," for freedom. Sojourner means traveler. Rocky 7's job was to take photos of Mars and scoop up Mars rocks and phone home about the photos he took like the Yogi rock. We lost contact with him and the mission ended on November 4, 1997. Wouldn't it be great to travel to Mars like a Sojourner astronaut and find Rocky 7. Then I will phone home and say I found Rocky 7! |
| This Chinese mountain ink stone is embedded with nautiloid cephalapod fossils (tapering sea mollusks) from 400 million years ago. The resulting Ordovician cephalapod pattern in the stone looks like a rocket to Mars. Ink stone, along with paper, brush and ink were known as the "Four Treasures of a Scholar's Study." Ernie is not the first fella to use space exploration in a rock theme. An early Ching Dynasty (17th century) literati beat him to it! |
Stellar Mars Links!
 Rocky 7 Science Rover |
 Mission to Mars Space Academy |
 Mars News From NASA JPL |
 More Mars Missions! |
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