The first I knew of Nasa's discovery of water on Mars was in this admirably succinct tweet from my colleague Neil McIntosh.
Breaking news... NASA confirm finding water on Mars. One of *the* great moments of space exploration, right there, tonight. Wow.
And the first he knew of it was from following the Mars Phoenix twitter feed.
But no one yet, to my knowledge, has remarked on the deleterious effects of Twitter on standards of public rhetoric.
When Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in 1969, he (mis)delivered the memorable line about it being "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind". (Apparently the original intent was that the line should be "one small step for a man" - don't tell Giles Coren.)
In contrast, last night's momentous news came thus:
An ice-containing sample made it into the TEGA oven. I can now say I'm the first mission to Mars to touch and then *taste* the water. FTW!
For the perplexed, Urbandictionary.com explains that FTW is an expression of excitement meaning "for the win".
Is this progress?
