Posted on 05/26/2008 8:20:13 PM PDT by blam
Camera On Mars Orbiter Snaps Phoenix During Landing
NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander can be seen parachuting down to Mars, in this image captured by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Calech/University of Arizona)
ScienceDaily (May 27, 2008) — A telescopic camera in orbit around Mars caught a view of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suspended from its parachute during the lander's successful arrival at Mars Sunday evening, May 25.
The image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter marks the first time ever one spacecraft has photographed another one in the act of landing on Mars.
Meanwhile, scientists pored over initial images from Phoenix, the first ever taken from the surface of Mars' polar regions. Phoenix returned information that it was in good health after its first night on Mars, and the Phoenix team sent the spacecraft its to-do list for the day.
"We can see cracks in the troughs that make us think the ice is still modifying the surface," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "We see fresh cracks. Cracks can't be old. They would fill in."
Camera pointing for the image from HiRISE used navigational information about Phoenix updated on landing day. The camera team and Phoenix team would not know until the image was sent to Earth whether it had actually caught Phoenix.
"We saw a few other bright spots in the image first, but when we saw the parachute and the lander with the cords connecting them, there was no question," said HiRISE Principal Investigator Alfred McEwen, also of the University of Arizona.
"I'm floored. I'm absolutely floored," said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. A team analyzing what can be learned from the Phoenix descent through the Martian atmosphere will use the image to reconstruct events.
HiRISE usually points downward. For this image, the pointing was at 62 degrees, nearly two-thirds of the way from straight down to horizontal. To tilt the camera, the whole orbiter must tilt. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was already pointed toward the expected descent path of Phoenix to record radio transmissions from Phoenix.
McEwen said, "We've never taken an image at such an oblique angle before."
The landing
From a distance of about 760 kilometers (472 miles) above the surface of the Red Planet, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter pointed its HiRISE obliquely toward Phoenix shortly after it opened its parachute while descending through the Martian atmosphere. The image reveals an apparent 10-meter-wide (30-foot-wide) parachute fully inflated. The bright pixels below the parachute show a dangling Phoenix. The image faintly detects the chords attaching the backshell and parachute. The surroundings look dark, but corresponds to the fully illuminated Martian surface, which is much darker than the parachute and backshell.
Phoenix released its parachute at an altitude of about 12.6 kilometers (7.8 miles) and a velocity of 1.7 times the speed of sound.
The tasks for May 27 for Phoenix include checkouts of some instruments and systems, plus additional imaging of the lander's surroundings.
pted from materials provided by National Aeronautics And Space Administration.
Duh.... Phoenix II, job security and government spending 101.
Check out #32 if you get a chance.
Be well.
From about 500 miles away, with a large command link time lapse, they still had it right!
I should have stayed awake in Solid Geometry class!
You’re not related to Sheila Jackson Lee are you? LOL
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I'm not sure I understand your logic here.
You state that Phoenix is testing for organic molecules then state it has no capability to test for life.
Seems to me that organic molecules are evidence of life. They are organic.
Here is Mission #1 as stated on the Phoenix site:
Goal 1: Determine whether life ever arose on Mars Continuing the Viking missions' quest, but in an environment known to be water-rich, Phoenix searches for signatures of life at the soil-ice interface just below the Martian surface. Phoenix will land in the artic plains, where its robotic arm will dig through the dry soil to reach the ice layer, bring the soil and ice samples to the lander platform, and analyze these samples using advanced scientific instruments. These samples may hold the key to understanding whether the Martian arctic is a habitable zone where microbes could grow and reproduce during moist conditions.
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/science02.php
When one considers the amount of scientific instruments packed into a 5 ft. diameter, 700 lb. lander, your complaint sounds like someone receiving a 60 in. flat screen for his birthday and complaining that he didn't get a full entertainment center.
Sheila Jackson Lee
Looks like a campsite, or someone keeping a close eye on an intruder.
Organic molecules, essentially carbon based precursors to life, are found throughout the universe. They are on comets, they are in the atmosphere of Venus, they are in the atmosphere of at least one gas giant planet that orbits a nearby star.
Yes, it will be interesting to learn if such molecules exist on Mars.
However, if you go to the enormous trouble and expense to send a spacecraft to Mars, why would you not equip it with the ability to detect cellular life, or the remains of cellular life?
Drammach says: “When one considers the amount of scientific instruments packed into a 5 ft. diameter, 700 lb. lander, your complaint sounds like someone receiving a 60 in. flat screen for his birthday and complaining that he didn't get a full entertainment center.”
If it took 10 years and $400 million to get the 60 inch flat screen, but 12 years and $450 million to get the full entertainment center, then, yes, I'm complaining.
To me this seems an obvious issue that is being deliberately ignored by the scientific press.
Why does Phoenix not have instruments that can specifically detect cellular life?
The neighborhood medical clinic across the street from me has those instruments.
If detecting cells on Mars would take 20 years and $1.5 billion, then that's a problem, but no one in the media is even asking the question.
It's always like that. You drive and drive and drive until you're so far out in the boonies there isn't a sign of life in any direction. And then someone comes along and sets up camp right next to you.
Like a microscope? Or something more complete like a tricorder?
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