NASA extends Phoenix mission as snow falls on Mars

Reuters on Yahoo ^ | 9/29/08 | Maggie Fox

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - NASA extended the mission of the busy Phoenix lander Monday, saying it will operate the lander until it dies in the cold and dark of the Martian winter.

It is already snowing there, above the equivalent of the Arctic circle on Mars, the researchers said.

The explorer found evidence that the dust on the surface of Mars resembles seawater in its chemical makeup, adding to evidence that liquid water that once may have supported life flowed on the planet's surface.

The Phoenix lander already has operated far longer than expected when it was dropped onto the Martian surface in May, and its controllers said they would squeeze every drop of life they could out of the solar-powered lander.

"We are literally trying to make hay as the sun shines," Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told reporters.

Scheduled to last just 90 Martian days, known as sols, the lander has already operated for more than 120.

But soon the sun will dip below the horizon until next April. Already the lander is getting less power, after a summer of light-filled days that resemble the months of daylight enjoyed at the Earth's poles in the summer.

[NormsRevenge]

The Robotic Arm on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander carries a scoop of Martian soil bound for the spacecraft's microscope in handout photo released on June 13, 2008. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Handout./Reuters)

[WakeUpAndVote]

Will the lander be able to store power to “reboot” it’s self when there is more power in the next year? That would have been a feature that should have been thought of.

[NormsRevenge]

ap on yahoo
excerpted

Mars lander finds minerals suggesting past water
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080929/ap_on_sc/phoenix_mars;_ylt=AkP2thBAt8tiO68vJO28gewPLBIF

ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer

LOS ANGELES - NASA’s Phoenix spacecraft has discovered evidence of past water at its Martian landing site and spotted falling snow for the first time, scientists reported Monday. Soil experiments revealed the presence of two minerals known to be formed in liquid water. Scientists identified the minerals as calcium carbonate, found in limestone and chalk, and sheet silicate.

But exactly how that happened remains a mystery.

—snip—

“It’s really kind of all up in the air,” said William Boynton, a mission scientist at the University of Arizona at Tucson.

[NormsRevenge]

I would expect it would be able to come back to life so to speak next sunny season, it is a stationary beast, not sure how long the instruments will run tho.. it does get pretty cold..

but the mars rovers have been thru a few years of use and still dig away

[NormsRevenge]

NASA Mars Lander Sees Falling Snow, Soil Data Suggest Liquid Past
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html

[Past Your Eyes]

Mars must have had an algore somewhere in its history that caused it to turn cold and dry up like that. All the little Martians must have committed mass suicide so that they would stop emitting carbon dioxide “for the good of the planet”.

[kanawa]

Was looking around for an answer to your question and ran across a picture I hadn't seen before ...

[WakeUpAndVote]

So what was the landing direction? South to North. (bottom to top) with some drift?

[AZ .44 MAG]

“The explorer found evidence that the dust on the surface of Mars resembles seawater in its chemical makeup,”

Except for the most important chemical component of seawater; H2O. Aside from that, yeah.

I’d really like to see humans, especially American humans, on Mars. I grew up on Sci Fi and never really outgrew it. We may have to go there to escape the socialism being foisted on us by Bush, Pelosi, and Reid, et al here.

Thanks for posting this. Is there a ping list for these types of posts