Last night I was out and about (ok, I was coming home from the pub); it was a crystal clear night, and the stars were out. looking due east, about 45 degrees from the horizon, I saw a point of light. It was bright – too bright to be a star, I reckon. I think it was a planet, but the question is, which?

The closest to earth are venus and mars, so it was one of these two. Using my weird form of logic, I think it was the latter: the sun had just set in the west, and I was looking east. Thus I was looking towards the outer solar system, so I must have been looking at mars. Of course, this is probably totally wrong – maybe it was just a bit of dirt on my glasses – but nothing quite so captures the human imagination than the thought of glimpsing another world.