The planet we're over proves to be a very interesting first find. It seems that there is a perpetual mist over the planet, giving it the grayish cast we had seen when we first got here although the mist is quite thicker on the side of the planet that faces away from the sun.
The days are short, almost twenty hours, and at the distance from the sun a year is probably two and a half Earth years.
The surface of the planet is about 58% grassland, the color of which is a dull grayish blue. There are no trees. The 42% percent of water is comprised of deep pools of varying sizes although all remain quite deep. The atmosphere is unbreatheable as it is comprised mainly of nitrogen. The rover pod also rolled over to a pool of "water," non-acidic but definitely different than our H2O. I've forgotten what Elizabeth said makes it different. Rocks are hard to find as well, only really apparent in the occasional large rocky projection from the planet's surface.
As for creatures...complex bacteria was abundant everywhere, as well as strange insects ranging from a half inch to three inches. The rover took a swim in one of the lakes and found several different species of fish as well. Elizabeth classified them all into three groups: Floaters, Feeders, and Finders. The fish of the Floater class remain close to the surface and eats algae and bugs from the water's surface. The Feeder class rests mostly in the middle range of water depth and eats fish from both the Floater and Finder classes. Finally the Finder Class rests in the deepest waters and eats the scraps that land on the bottom, and are mostly shellfish-like in appearance, despite long tendrils to snatch at food. The rover pod had actually been ensnared at one point until the fish decided that the pod was not what it wanted to eat and let it go.
On the surface there were only two forms of creatures that we could actually find. One appears to be a prairie dog-like creature that burrows beneath the surface with large wide paws. From the distant scaling by the rover pod the largest one found was about three feet from ear tip to its pointed rat-like tail. The other form of creature we found look feline, with coats the same color of the grass and little dark spots here and there. Their naked tails have a barb on the end too, which we managed to see one of them whip at one of the prairie dogs despite the fact that the felines are less than half the size of their prey.
One of the felines also approached the rover out of curiosity. It sniffed around it and we watched through the cams set up around the pod. They have very wide noses and appear to have poor eyesight, something that we think the nose and huge ears help to get around. But as its face came close to one of the cams, we saw something that scared us: Intelligence.
There is something in the eye that always conveys intelligence. Its the way the eye focuses on something. Even if viewing a completely different species, it's easy to tell when it's thinking. This cat was thinking, hard, about our little rover pod.
The feline finally left, loping off to its distant pack while the rover pod jetted back up to the ship. We won't be the first to set foot on Little Blue, but the data we collected will be filed and sent back to Earth so that later crews might. Or might not. It's not our business to decide these things for the next crew.
Did I mention that? Since our launch was successful, once Earth gets our data from Little Blue they're going to begin construction on a second ship just like our own. Lets hope the next one looks better. But for now this is Jack Babylon, signing off.
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