NASA scientists are not the only ones poring over their screens to study the adventures of the Pathfinder space probe mission to Mars, which landed on the planet last Friday. Web surfers can also access live pictures from the planet's surface on CompuServe.

Using the wonders of push technology, users can download BackWeb software from the site, at www.compuserve.com/mars, and select the Mars Lander Channel. For the next week, users will be able to receive images direct from Pathfinder as well as headline news about the mission, automatically supplied and formatted to the user's desktop in the form of wallpaper.

From the site, space cadets can also see pictures of the Mars mission taken from the Hubble telescope.

The Pathfinder rover vehicle is controlled by NASA scientists in the US through an application written in Java. The Web Interface for Telescience (WITS) enables the scientists to plot where they want the vechile to go from their desktops.

If recent speculation that rocks from Mars show signs of primitive life is correct, web surfers may also be among the first to see our extra-terrestrial neighbours.