Late in the fall, during a rare lull in his work on the Mars program, Grotzinger and I took a drive to Death Valley due east from his house in lush San Marino, across the front range of the San Gabriels, past Apple Valley and Barstow, and down into the great basin of the Mojave.

NEWYORKER: The Martian Chroniclers

Drive just 10km east from Papallacta and you enter the Amazon Basin's cloud forest, which covers the slopes and the valley in green growth.

BBC: Hot springs and hummingbirds in Ecuador