Residents of a Scottish village are over the moon after the multibillion-pound Nasa expedition to Mars put their community on the inter-galactic map.
Residents of Glenelg in Inverness-shire have found fame with the landing of robotic device, Curiosity, to search for life on the Red Planet.
It is preparing to make tracks to another Glenelg, within the planet's huge crater.
Pictures of the mission have been beamed around the world after they were transmitted to Nasa headquarters in the US.
Now the 350-strong Highland community, which has a pub, a community centre, shop and school is hoping to cash in by attracting new visitors.
It even boasts its own rover – the last working turntable ferry in the world which crosses over the sea to Skye.
"The search for life on Mars has put our Glenelg on the map – at least on this planet," said Christopher Main, director of the community interest company that runs the 43-year-old ferry.
"There is plenty of life in Glenelg – they may not find it on Mars but they would here.
"Glenelg had a population of around 4000 before the Clearances. The Vikings were here for 500 years. Life has been found here for centuries."
Mr Main added: "The population has fallen now to about 350 – but it is a very lively community. And we have our own rover – the ferry that roves across the narrows.
"She's doing well – and if the Mars robot lasts as long, they will be delighted.
"But our Glenelg could not be more different to the one on Mars. We have a very wooded, lush and pretty area. We wouldn't swap it for the world – or another world come to that!"
The Mars robot, which landed two weeks ago, has turned its six wheels briefly to satisfy engineers that its locomotion system is in full working order.
Curiosity is a sophisticated mobile science laboratory. It has been built to drive at least 20km across the Martian landscape to investigate if the planet ever had conditions necessary for life.
Wednesday's drive saw the rover roll forward 4.5 metres, turn on the spot 120 degrees, and reverse up 2.5 metres. It took about five minutes to complete the manoeuvre.
Another 10 minutes was spent taking pictures.
The rover is now pointing south-west in the general direction of Mount Sharp, the big mountain at the centre of Mars' equatorial Gale Crater.
Scientists expect to find rocks at the base of the peak that were laid down billions of years ago.
"When we finally get to Glenelg, we want to study the outcrop there and take a look at the contacts between the three different terrain types," said Joy Crisp, a scientist on the mission. "Maybe that is where we'll decide to do our first drilling into rock. And after Glenelg, we head for Mount Sharp. That's going to take several months."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article