Universe Today

I was just thinking of the Phoenix lander earlier this week, wondering if our little buddy was surviving the Martian winter when, boom: via Twitter came this:

@MarsPhoenix "Spring has sprung in the north hemi(sphere) of Mars! Team is waiting for longer daylight hours, around mid-Jan., to 'listen' for our lander."

Then, via another Tweet from @doug_ellison, (Doug Ellision) I found out the folks at Unmannedspaceflight.com have been thinking about the Phoenix lander, too. Phil Stooke from the UMSF crew had searched for Phoenix in the latest images released by the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, taken in August 2009 and found of glimmer of hope the lander was still visible among the CO2 frost and "snow." See the comparison above of the landing site from Dec. 2008 to August 2009. Then Emily Lakadawalla of the Planetary Society Blog took things one step further and made a little "movie" of HiRISE images of Phoenix during the different seasons on Mars (check out her extensive post here.) Hope springs eternal for many of us as to whether we'll ever hear from Phoenix again, and time will only tell. But its nice to know there were lots of us with Phoenix on the brain this week; kind of a shared experience! (except everyone else did all the work….) See below for more closeups of Phoenix's winter surroundings from UMSF.
Read more…

Filed under: Mars | 6 Comments »

The Phoenix lander is the 6th spacecraft from NASA that has both landed on Mars and transmitted information as intended. Phoenix touched down the Martian surface on May 25, 2008. From that time until it lost communication, it made observations, conducted experiments and sent a plethora of information back to Earth.

For 5 months, the Phoenix lander sent information about the Martian weather, chemical composition, surrounding terrain and climate cycles before yielding to the harsh Martian winter that prevented ample solar power from reaching its panels. Its last signal was received on November 2, 2008. Nevertheless, the lander far exceeded expectations having completed its mission as early as August of that year.

Among the Phoenix's 'tools' were the following:

• A robotic arm that was capable of digging half a meter below the Martian surface and collecting soil and ice samples. The robot arm was also equipped with a camera that took colored pictures of the samples as well as the surrounding area.
• A Surface Stereo Imager; basically, a high resolution camera that served as the main camera of the Phoenix lander. It was able to capture breathtaking pictures of the Martian Arctic. Being a stereo camera, the pictures had a certain depth or 3-dimensional attribute.
• A Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) whose primary function was to bake samples and determine, among others, how much carbon dioxide as well as water vapor were released. The TEGA had eight tiny ovens to analyze 8 separate samples.
• A Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer for studying very tiny soil particles (diameters as small as 16 micrometers). It was also used to measure the thermal and electrical conductivity of soil particles.

Those mentioned are just a few of what the Phoenix lander had in its possession. Just imagine that it was capable of satisfying the cravings of earthbound scientists from the field of physics, chemistry, biology, meteorology, geology, and many others.

Among the greatest discoveries made by the Phoenix lander – and 'many' is an understatement – was that it snows at night in Mars. Before this discovery, scientists only knew that Martian polar caps advanced and retreated but they didn't know whether precipitation in fact occurred. The lander's findings proved that it did.

The Phoenix lander was a non-mobile machine. NASA's current explorers on Mars are two rovers, wheeled robots that can navigate over the Martian surface. Because of this capability, the two rovers – named Opportunity and Spirit – are able to move to safer regions when climates become harsh and hence last longer. Both rovers have been operational for 5 years!

We've got an article covering the Phoenix Lander Team's discovery that it snows at night in Mars. There's another one, also here in Universe Today, that talks about winds and weather on Mars.

The Phoenix Mars Mission has its own site. Click on that link to know more. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory also has a site for the Phoenix lander.

Here are two episodes at Astronomy Cast that you might want to check out as well:
X-Ray Astronomy
Optical Astronomy

Filed under: Astronomy | Comments Off

On board the plucky little Phoenix Mars lander was an even pluckier and littler device called the Telltale. It measured, for the first time, wind speeds and directions at the Mars polar region. Scientists have now been able to summarize the results from the Telltale, and presented their findings at the European Planetary Science Conference in Potsdam, Germany. They shared some unexpected new findings about the weather on Mars.
Read more…

Filed under: Mars, Missions | Comments Off

Scientists say that the Arctic region studied by Phoenix lander may be a favorable environment for microbes. Just-right chemistry and periods where thin films of liquid water form on the surface could make for a habitable setting. "Not only did we find water ice, as expected, but the soil chemistry and minerals we observed lead us to believe this site had a wetter and warmer climate in the recent past — the last few million years — and could again in the future," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson.
Read more…

Filed under: Astronomy, Mars | 10 Comments »

It snows on Mars. This occurs, at least in the northern arctic region where the Phoenix lander set up camp in 2008. Science teams from Phoenix were able to observe water-ice clouds in the Martian atmosphere and precipitation that fell to the ground at night and sublimate into water in the morning. James Whiteway and his colleagues say that clouds and precipitation on Mars play a role in the exchange of water between the ground and the atmosphere and when conditions are right, snow falls regularly on Mars.
Read more…

Filed under: Mars | 2 Comments »