Phoenix Mars lander

[kcwildman]

Re: Phoenix Mars Lander

LOL HA,HA,HA I f*%#ing new it, imagin that the first tests come up and
already they are sayin the thing is broke/aint workin quite rite. lookin more and more like a B.S. story huh.

 

[Num7]

Re: Phoenix Mars Lander

Yeah, that means they fond some stuff, and they are already messing with us.
Damn lol

 

[kcwildman]

Re: Phoenix Mars Lander

or the thing never went anywhere, its still setting on the back lot at universal studios.

 

[Num7]

Re: Phoenix Mars Lander

They'll send a staff guy to shake the lander, in order to make the little rocks fall into the ovens lol

 

[kcwildman]

Re: Phoenix Mars Lander

lol......now, now
don't be giving away the plot of next weeks show like that
you'll have the M.I.B. at the door bu morning

 

[Num7]

Re: Phoenix Mars Lander

I haven't seen them, they'll get back on monday perhaps, they must not work on week-ends lol
They'll stop the updates soon, the guy moving the lander will be on vacations !

 

[kcwildman]

Re: Phoenix Mars Lander

aaahhhh yes lost in margareta-ville. lucky bunch of jerks settin on a beach laughin at us

 

[Num7]

Re: Phoenix Mars Lander

They're on something, they just don't know what it is.

Mars team ponders whether Phoenix Lander sees ice or salt

LOS ANGELES ? Is the white stuff in the Martian soil ice or salt?
That's the question bedeviling scientists in the three weeks since the Phoenix lander began digging into Mars' north pole region to study whether the arctic could be habitable.

Shallow trenches excavated by the lander's backhoe-like robotic arm have turned up specks and at times even stripes of mysterious white material mixed in with the clumpy, reddish dirt.

Phoenix merged two previously dug trenches over the weekend into a single pit measuring a little over a foot long and 3 inches deep. The new trench was excavated at the edge of a polygon-shaped pattern in the ground that may have been formed by the seasonal melting of underground ice.

New photos showed the exposed bright substance present only in the top part of the trench, suggesting it's not uniform throughout the excavation site. Phoenix will take images of the trench dubbed "Dodo-Goldilocks" over the next few days to record any changes. If it's ice, scientists expect it to sublimate ? or go from solid to gas, bypassing the liquid stage ? when exposed to the sun because of the planet's frigid temperatures and low atmospheric pressure.

"We think it's ice. But again, until we can see it disappear ... we're not guaranteed yet," mission scientist Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis said Monday.

Even if it's not ice, the discovery of salt would also be significant because it's normally formed when water evaporates in the soil.

Preliminary results from a bake-and-sniff experiment at low temperatures failed to turn up any trace of water or ice in the scoopful of soil that was delivered to the lander's test oven last week. Scientists planned to heat the soil again this week to up to 1,800 degrees, said William Boynton of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Phoenix landed in the Martian arctic plains on May 25 on a three-month, $420 million mission to study whether the polar environment could be favorable for primitive life to emerge. The lander's main job is to dig into an ice layer believed to exist a few inches from the surface.

The project is led by the University of Arizona and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The lander was built by Lockheed Martin.

Mars team ponders whether Phoenix Lander sees ice or salt - USATODAY.com

Num7

 

[Num7]

Re: Phoenix Mars Lander

Water ice !

Bright Chunks At Phoenix Lander's Mars Site Must Have Been Ice

June 19, 2008 -- Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it.

"It must be ice," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that."

The chunks were left at the bottom of a trench informally called "Dodo-Goldilocks" when Phoenix's Robotic Arm enlarged that trench on June 15, during the 20th Martian day, or sol, since landing. Several were gone when Phoenix looked at the trench early today, on Sol 24.

Also early today, digging in a different trench, the Robotic Arm connected with a hard surface that has scientists excited about the prospect of next uncovering an icy layer.

The Phoenix science team spent Thursday analyzing new images and data successfully returned from the lander earlier in the day.

Studying the initial findings from the new "Snow White 2" trench, located to the right of "Snow White 1," Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, co-investigator for the robotic arm, said, "We have dug a trench and uncovered a hard layer at the same depth as the ice layer in our other trench."

On Sol 24, Phoenix extended the first trench in the middle of a polygon at the "Wonderland" site. While digging, the Robotic Arm came upon a firm layer, and after three attempts to dig further, the arm went into a holding position. Such an action is expected when the Robotic Arm comes upon a hard surface.

Meanwhile, the spacecraft team at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver is preparing a software patch to send to Phoenix in a few days so scientific data can again be saved onboard overnight when needed. Because of a large amount a duplicative file-maintenance data generated by the spacecraft Tuesday, the team is taking the precaution of not storing science data in Phoenix's flash memory, and instead downlinking it at the end of every day, until the conditions that produced those duplicative data files are corrected.

"We now understand what happened, and we can fix it with a software patch," said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena. "Our three-month schedule has 30 days of margin for contingencies like this, and we have used only one contingency day out of 24 sols. The mission is well ahead of schedule. We are making excellent progress toward full mission success."

Click Here for images associated with this press release.

Phoenix Mars Mission - NASA
Mars Phoenix Tweets: "We Have ICE!" | Wired Science from Wired.com

Also, an explanation of one of the pics.

Disappearing Ice
These images were acquired by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's Surface Stereo Imager on the 21st and 25th days of the mission, or Sols 20 and 24 (June 15 and 18, 2008).

These images show sublimation of ice in the trench informally called "Dodo-Goldilocks" over the course of four days.

In the lower left corner, lumps disappear, similar to the process of evaporation.

The Phoenix Mission is led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf of NASA. Project management of the mission is by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development is by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.

Phoenix Mars Mission - Gallery - Videos & Animations

Num7

 

[Num7]

Re: Phoenix Mars Lander

Some nice pics of Mars ! Enjoy !
Martian Skies - The Big Picture - Boston.com