PASADENA, CA­—More than one year into the automated motor vehicle’s exploration of Mars’ arid Gale Crater, NASA scientists confirmed Friday that the delirious, weakened Curiosity rover is currently hallucinating that it has discovered water on the Red Planet. “Earlier this morning, mission control received an enthusiastic transmission from Curiosity indicating that it had detected a significant volume of cold, clear, crystal-blue water capable of supporting life,” said project scientist Ashwin Vasavada, adding that the demented rover then made a beeline for what its strained, dust-clogged sensors determined to be a sparkling desert oasis encircled in waving palm fronds. “While we remain skeptical that Curiosity has in fact come across a plentiful source of water that we somehow overlooked for several decades, the rover appears convinced that it has unearthed the building blocks of life on Mars, as evidenced by the large quantities of the supposed ‘water’ it has so far shoveled into its spectrometer.” At press time, Vasavada confirmed that Curiosity had also apparently discovered an alluring, seductive lady rover.

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