Anyway, he has beamed some pics back to us, as his travels have brought him to all sorts of, well, out of this world places.

Well, as it turns out, in his epic search for oil, he accidentally not only discovered water on Mars:
Images Suggest Water Once Covered Mars

WASHINGTON (July 16) - Minerals in the soil of Mars show it was covered once by lakes, rivers and other bodies of water that could have supported life, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.

Last month the Mars Phoenix Lander found ice on the surface of the planet, but it is frozen hard and covered by red dust. Writing in the journal Nature, a team of scientists shows that the ice is left over from warmer, wetter times.

"This is really exciting because we're finding dozens of sites where future missions can land to understand if Mars was ever habitable and if so, to look for signs of past life," said John Mustard of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who worked on the study.

(Via AOL News)

Then, well, he went just a bit further out and located an entire (mini) planet:

Dwarf Planet Near Pluto Gets a Name

WASHINGTON (July 20) - A dwarf planet orbiting beyond Neptune has been designated the third plutoid in the solar system and given the name Makemake, the International Astronomical Union said on Saturday.

The red methane-covered dwarf planet formerly known as 2005 FY9 or "Easterbunny" is named after a Polynesian creator of humanity and god of fertility.

(Via AOL News)

Below is an artist's rendition of what that impact could possibly could have looked like:

LOS ANGELES (June 25) - Why is Mars two-faced? Scientists say fresh evidence supports the theory that a monster impact punched the red planet, leaving behind perhaps the largest gash on any heavenly body in the solar system.

Today, the Martian surface has a split personality. The southern hemisphere of Mars is pockmarked and filled with ancient rugged highlands. By contrast, the northern hemisphere is smoother and covered by low-lying plains.

Via AP

I’m posting this because, well, as we all know Walt’s screwy for this sort of stuff, and I figure if I keep posting crap stuff like this, he’ll come back and let me go back to doing stuff that pays.

The Perfessor

Water ice has been discovered on Mars by the Phoenix probe which landed on the planet last month, scientists confirmed.

Mission controllers had been excited by chunks of white material in the Martian soil exposed by the craft's robot arm.

On Saturday scientists confirmed what they had hoped - that the material was frozen water.

The Press Association

So you all know what this mean, don’t you? Well Walt will have a place to make a rest stop on his way to Senda

Seems that NASA has finaly managed to hit one out of the park (so to speak), and successfully landed a probe in Mars' most northern polar region, which is believed to hold a reservoir of ice beneath it. Well, instead of crashing yet another billion of our tax dollars on the Red Planet, they seemed to have successfully landed the Phoenix Mars Lander softly in the Martian arctic plains on Sunday. Since then it has apparently dazzled scientists with the first-ever glimpse of the Red Planet's high northern latitudes.

Yep, we finally got one placed (gently) on the surface of mars (and not coming in at 100 MPH). So I guess that the NASA guys all do have something to celebrate! If you want to read more about the post, you can check out the full post over here. Then you can post a quick note to our Imperious leader, and tell him that while he was on vacation some mad-cool outerspace stuff took place. Boy will he be jeralous, eh?

The Perfessor