Well my friends, it’s just about that time. In about 14 hours, Phoenix will be landing on Mars. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but it’s pretty amazing to reflect on the magnitude of the achievement: Mars is 420 million miles away, and just to be able to target a small patch of land on a different planet is incredible.
Tomorrow evening (about 12:30 AM GMT, 6:30 PM EST) I encourage you to swallow your pride, admit your geekiness, and tune into NASA TV. If you’re feeling super creative and/or want to commit social suicide, you can host a Phoenix landing party at which you can serve frozen Mars bars. Or deep-fried Mars bars if you’re in Scotland.
Happy viewing!
About an hour to go! Let’s hope it makes a happy landing.
Yup, I’m sat here with Nasa TV running…
Successful separation…fingers crossed for landing.
"A signal has been detected from Phoenix indicating that the lander is on the surface of Mars. "
Sweet! It seems to have survived! Still waiting on an ok from the solar panels, but the worst is past. Amazing.
Awesome! It’ll be interesting to see what they ‘see’ below the surface.
On a side note, anyone have a clue why they’ve put an atomic force microscope on board or how it will go about operating?
@ Nick – read all about the instruments here. The rest of the Phoenix website is very good too. The AFM is designed to map the fine structure of soil/ice samples.
By the way, the first lander images are up.
Deep-fried Mars bars? Shouldn’t they be presented in liquid nitrogen? Oh, I see, we’re talking day temperatures. But why Scotland?
Woo-hoo! False-color postcards going up!
Heather, deep fried mars bars are a Scottish delicacy. Seriously. They’re surprisingly tasty actually, but I can only stomach about half of a bar. Deep fried pizzas are not so good.