Thomas M. Miovas Jr. Posted May 26, 2008 Report Share Posted May 26, 2008 The Phoenix lander made it safely to the polar region of Mars this weekend and the first images are available: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/images/index.html The stated mission of this robotic laboratory is to dig into the surface of Mars to see if there are any chemical residue from previous life on Mars. There is a theory that the reason they had not seen such evidence for life in the previous missions to Mars is that the weather oxidized the residue until it become undetectable billions of years later, and they are hoping that the polar ice fields would have preserved this evidence. Also, there is water ice in the polar regions, though it is locked up in tundra beneath the surface. Given the evidence on earth for life in most inhospitable regions, the claim is that it might be possible for some sort of bacterial life to exist so long as water is available, even in sub-zero temperatures. Eons ago, it is thought that Mars had something similar to shallow oceans covering much of the surface, possibly for a long enough time period that life could have arisen. So, it is not too far fetched to think that life might have arisen there given its similarity to earth billions of years ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IchorFigure Posted May 27, 2008 Report Share Posted May 27, 2008 Phil Plait on his bad astronomy blog put it beautifully. http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/05...est-image-ever/ about a picture taken of the Phoenix landing Think on this, and think on it carefully: you are seeing a manmade object falling gracefully and with intent to the surface of an alien world, as seen by another manmade object already circling that world, both of them acting robotically, and both of them hundreds of million of kilometers away. Never, ever forget: we did this. This is what we can do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
universehead Posted May 28, 2008 Report Share Posted May 28, 2008 It was such a great moment to watch the Live broadcast of the landing on the science channel, I got goosebumps...I was also yelling "shut up" outloud to my TV at the reporter/commentary/whatever he was while he was rudely enjoying the sound of his own voice. Speaking over the actual dialog of the scientists that had been working endless nights for years for this moment. Sorry, I know this isn't the best topic for a rant. It just made me a little angry for such an amazing moment in human accomplishment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas M. Miovas Jr. Posted May 31, 2008 Author Report Share Posted May 31, 2008 NASA has been updating their website almost daily since the Phoenix has landed: http://www.nasa.gov They actually named a bunch of the rocks within reach and have used a robotic arm with a camera to look underneath the spacecraft. Looks like they landed on a patch of ice that was covered by a few inches of blown soil. The dustorms on Mars cover most of the planet, and it looks like the soil where Phoenix landed was very loose and blew away from the rocked blasts, uncovering something harder that they speculate is water ice. They will know more when they start digging. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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