The further away from Earth you get, the less plausible it is to talk about the similarities of life on Earth. It would be an independent origin of life that would be different from what we see here.

The images are wonderful. We're learning a great deal about how to best acquire and process these giant images from our very complicated camera.

These high-resolution images of Mars are thrilling, and unique given the early morning time-of-day.

It's great these images turned out well because a lot of things had to work right, including exactly how the spacecraft points and the stability. It turned out just right.

They're great images. They're what all of us were hoping for - better than some people were expecting.

They are sharp, clear, and beautiful. I am very happy.

Any place where there's liquid water, there's life.

These are random targets, and they don't hit what we know are the greatest areas of interest on Mars.

At this point we have an idea that water is probably abundant on Mars in the form of ice. It's not a matter of finding water on Mars but learning its importance in climate change ... and clearly it has been important to shaping the landscape.

We know that rocks have been transported from Mars to Earth. It's possible that life existed only on Mars at one point. It's possible that rocks could have carried spores and life to Earth and that we're Martians.