Smack dab in the middle of Indian Country, it was founded in 1872 by Mormons who converted the Hopi leader for whom the Painted Desert town is named.

FORBES: One Horn That Tuba City, Ariz., Doesn't Toot

The picture Mariner 9 painted of modern Mars was of a static desert, with none of the jostling of tectonic plates that makes life interesting for geologists by throwing up island chains and mountain ranges, and opening deep basins for oceans to form in.

ECONOMIST: Martian chronicles