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The phoenix has landed! So far everything has been perfect.
Update: Phoenix is level within 1/4 of a degree. Terrific news for both geology and meteorology experiments. You can stay in touch via posts at the Discovery News space blog.
Watched everyone jumping up and down in Pasadena and Tucson – in Hi-Def on Science Channel HD. They’ll be back with updates at 11PM EDT.
Bubba Ray says there also is live coverage continuing at NASA TV online.
First Images:
Can’t be cranky about finding little Martian cousins!
That is pretty darn cool.
That pic looks like Viking
Congratulations to NASA and JPL.
Looking forward to the seeing the pictures and hearing about the data from Phoenix!
You’ll have to wait about 90 minutes after landing for Mars Odyssey to fly over head for telemetry data, info about the solar panel deploy,emt, and the first pictures.
Landed just 0.25 degrees off horizontal (no boulders, etc) which means things should go smoothly.
Needless to say, I get off on this stuff. 
I don’t think the carpet in my apartment is 1/4 degree from flat.
Not fake.
Pictures of the solar panels have been received. Everyone is clapping so I assume they are correct.
Another picture.
#11. Great photo. Made my day.
WOW, this is a long beach…
whers the water?
I, for one, welcome our new Martian overlords.
The picture looks more like the area North of the Bad Lands in Utah. I hope the truthers get right on this.
why is the date on the “live coverage” of NASA dated 2 years ago? Click on that link and look at the date above the video feed. Our government dollars at work!
#16, I noticed that too. Obviously NASA is working on a time machine.
Obviously, they outsourced IT.
Those of us in TuCSon are really tired of those who can’t take the time or the spell-checking to spell our town’s name correctly.
Congrats to the Phoenix team.
[Thanks for the correction. Spell-checkers rarely work on proper nouns]
Perhaps the Martian curse has been lifted? Or maybe it’s just that the kinks have now been worked out — everyone now working in the same units, etc….
The APOD archive has some amazing pictures. Here is an interesting one about large black holes in Mars. http://tiny.cc/Undergroundlifeonmars
Wy do they keep adding the red hue to the pics. Strange.
This is great stuff!!!
#22, Just for a little info, if you were to stand on the surface of mars, you would see the exact same colors.
The surface of mars is composed mostly of Iron Oxide (rust), which we know is red.
“Rovers and landers on the surface of Mars have photographed the planet’s striking sky colors, including sunrises and sunsets. On Earth, the mid-day sky is blue because of the way air molecules efficiently scatter blue light in our dense, relatively clear atmosphere. When the Sun is low in Earth’s sky, sunlight travels through much more of the air and so scattering of red light by dust and haze particles becomes more important than scattering by air molecules and our skies turn reddish and pink. On Mars, the sky color is almost totally determined by dust (only a feeble amount of molecular scattering is possible in the thin Martian atmosphere). Based on their sizes and shapes, dust particles scatter different colors of light more efficiently in certain directions, however. The mid-day Mars sky is reddish to pink because scattering of red light by fine dust particles is most efficient in that geometry. When the Sun is low, scattering of blue light is more efficient. Thus, the pinkish mid-day skies give way to bluish sunsets. Martian sky colors are to some extent opposite to those of Earth.”
http://tinyurl.com/6bdbb4
As a side note, often at sunrise and sunset the earth’s sky on the horizon is mostly red. This is because most of the blue light from the sun has been scattered due to the sunlight having traveled through more air to get to you, leaving reds and yellows.
Also, if you could buy a ticket to outer space and then look at the sun, it would be visibly greener than how it appears on earth because the blue light component has not been scattered (yellow and blue makes green, take away the blue and you are left with yellow.
So although we think of our sun as a yellow sun, it’s actually yellowish with a green tint.
If you look at this pic, our sun is actually not right inbetween the G and K, but actually at the upper G.
http://tinyurl.com/59247t
#23 – Or incorrect white balance
And as another thing…
This dust in the martian atmosphere is one reason why everyone worries about how much dust is on the solar panels. On earth, the dust in the air attracts water vapor, eventually becoming so heavy that the dust falls to earth.
On mars, there is only a trace amount of water vapor and the gravity is only 38% that of earth.
What this means is the dust in the martian atmosphere can stay suspended indefinitely.
Th lander was supposed to land where there was ice. No ice in the photos, so therefore this is just another situation where the Bush administration lied.
>>therefore this is just another situation
>>where the Bush administration lied.
Heh. Heh heh. Has the Bush “administration” ever told the truth? That would warrant an entry in the Guinness Book.
btw, Mr. Benson2, your attitude towards the future First Lady (Michelle Obama) is quite odd. Are you a plain old misogynist, or do you just hate people of African descent? Either way….creepy!
#27 – Since you asked, I’ll reply but the Dvorak editor will probably censor me.
I am not partial to a hypocritical first lady who believes “the man” keeps raising the bar to make life more difficult – especially from a woman with a Ivy League degree and currently pulling down $300K+ thanks to some Illinois political high jinks.
Color me old-fashioned, but I believe a first lady should be optimistic and speak positively about this great country.
The date on the APOD page for the video is the date the APOD page itself was posted. It has nothing to do with current events or the NASA TV webcast. It’s merely the posting date for the portal to NASA TV. Double-click on the TV picture to make it full screen.
KD at Cage Match will probably update the science / pictures from the Phoenix mission. Mission control is about to be transferred to the Univ. of Arizona. Last CM article on Phoenix is here. Latest picture and references to more on CM are here.
Aside:
Ah_yea has the science right about the color of the Sun as seen from Earth and from Mars. That would be bonus points on CM.
jbenson2, there appears to be ice in the CM photo. Why blame it on the Bush Admin? I doubt they know nothing more than the $$ amount it took to put this laboratory on another planet. Heck, they probably don’t even know that.
#11 is awesome!
If #26 had been following this wonderful venture beyond Fax Snooze coverage, he might be aware that the significant quantity of ice sought in some of the experiments lies beneath a couple inches of dirt.
But, then, that would require dragging his perception and understanding of life, reality, women, politics, bigotry and war – forward from the 19th Century.
Great photos! Thanks for Posting them.
I suggest watching the video of the descent, as witnessed in the control room.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMQe6z-iC3k
I thought everyone was smiling a bit too soon while Phoenix was descending. Fortunately it was just confidence from people who knew they did the very best they could!
I thoroughly expected the lander to crash at any time, and celebrated with some Port when it didn’t!
Here is another interesting picture of Mars.
#26 – It’s gone. You can thank global warming caused by our expanding(technological) footprint.
I know it did! I was there at the soundstage out in Chatsworth that doubles for a porn studio. Amazing how they are able to simulate Mars right where they are filming Ramobone #8
Now let’s see..Mars landing..Red soil..Project Phoenix..Red soil..Sedona????:)
While you’re at it, try finding some of the proof that are stored on that same soundstage about 9/11. I bet the loons here would be very happy.
How much did this cost? NASA should mostly be shut down. They came so close to shutting down the space station 15 years ago.
>>NASA should mostly be shut down.
Fuckin’ A-Right! Most of our money should go for no-bid contracts to Halliburton. Dick Cheney needs to retire in the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed.
My hope for Mars exploration.
In the event people ever land on Mars, I’d like to see real-time video of a Martian creature, the size of the Rock of Gibraltar, emerge from below the surface where it has been patiently waiting. Then while all of us watch, it slowly and casually devours the alien invaders. and lets out a big burp. Finally, it displays the universal middle finger salute. Then it smiles.
#40 The ‘universal’ middle finger salute is only ‘universal’ for creatures with an odd number of fingers.
Absolutely cool stuff! Bravo Nasa!
I am dying for them to find some sort of life on Mars – no matter how small, primitive or frozen… it will be the coolest day in human history.
I’m glad a Transformer didn’t destroy this one, too.
#42–Jopa==nope. Religion is well positioned to claim “all life” was created by god. “others are not of this fold” and BS like that.
While cool, the coolest day had to be Darwins Publication. Put us on the road to recognize everything evolved from that initial big-bang. If god wants to fit-in the cracks, I guess we can’t stop human stupidity even as we explore the stars.
Mars = Looks like Phoenix
I think when they say cool, they are referring to frozen life
Are we really gonna find anything different then we have previous??
I am not impressed that we have so much to learn about space but we keep going back over the same territory. For me the WOW factor of Mars is gone. This is not well spent tax payer’s dollars.
Looks like overdone meringue on a pie to me.
NASA budget amounts to no more than 1% of military spending. ’nuff said
green, actually it’s about 5%. That said the money spent on NASA is money well spent.
The US spends more on food stamps than they do on NASA.
NASA’s budget is $17 billion
>>NASA’s budget is $17 billion
That’s a couple of days’ worth of the Iraq war.
Everything past getting satellites into orbit is a waste of money. We are going down the tubes here on earth and every effort needs to be put into pollution free energy production. When the energy crisis is fully addressed, then the passing generation of nerds’ wet dreams can be satisfied.
>>#52 – Now that was pretty damn funny!
Bittersweet, Mister Tomato Head. That we piss away more money on Dumbya’s silly little war than we spend on understanding the mysteries of the universe.
Of course, George never was very curious, was he?
#55 – You know what’s going to happen here. Shortly this probe will be up on blocks, the radio will be missing and there will be Martian gang signs spray painted all over it.
Fuck the war, what a waste.
#54 – Sorry, it’s this kind of research that will spin off the science that will fix everything else.
One of the latest photos is on CM – Mars Orbiter captures Phoenix descent.
If Mars had been about twice as massive and held on to a bit more air and had something as interesting as pond scum I’d be a lot more interested.
Okay the folks at NASA did a wonderful job an my hat’s off to them. ?8^) Having read John Carter of Mars I do miss the beautiful babes.
Pictures of mars are very nice. I enjoy them.
Thanks
U.K.Kharkande
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