Don’t think we ever posted a true color of the Martian surface from the Phoenix mission yet. This was stitched together by James Canvin. Hopefully the next time we post this view it will be covered with Martian frost. Just in time for Christmas!

“Evidence of Soil Habitability Inconclusive.”

See The Planetary Blog on the results from Phoenix. Results could actually be the opposite of what we are hoping for…

“Many people — including, I must admit, me — took this sentence to mean that a special briefing had taken place, alerting the White House to some positive news about life on Mars.”

Emily Lakdawalla comments on the Phoenix hub-bub which may have been over-blown.

“It would appear that the US President has been briefed by Phoenix scientists about the discovery of something more “provocative” than the discovery of water existing on the Martian surface.”

Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society will host a web stream on this matter Wednesday night.

See the full story and larger surrounding area image here. Larger image includes the parachute, back shell and heat shield.

Read more

I cannot stop looking at this animation. The first frame was taken on the 8th sol (a Mars day) and the second around the 31st sol. As you can see from the animation, it seems that some mystery material is either growing, moving or multiplying around one of the legs of the Phoenix lander. The most likely source is frost building up on what would be a very cold surface, however the only issue is that it doesn’t look exactly like frost and it hasn’t appeared on any of the other legs.

Image note: We added an artificial fade from 1 frame to frame 2 and scaled the original image to around 300%. Due to artifacts from increasing the scale and compression we added some noise to smooth out the overall appearance.

It looks like Phoenix is finding results with chemistry analysis tests that suggest Martian soil could - or could have supported life. We have known for a while now that elements like magnesium, sodium, potassium and chlorine are all found in Martian soil. Now we also know that the soil alkalinity is comparable to that which we grow all kinds of plants in here on Earth.

There are more tests to be done, but these results could make growing vegetables in Martian soil a reality one day. It also makes it more conceivable that some kind of life may one day have existed on Mars… or even currently.

Thank you… its just what we came for. Now, can we have that in a glass or perhaps with some bacteria?

Was reminded of this image in the current issue of The Planetary Report. It was taken by Mars Express in 2007 and is featured in a current article about the excellent Russian Phobos-Grunt mission planned for 2009. This mission marks a return to planetary exploration for the Russian space program and does so in a big way. The plan is to land on the Martian moon Phobos – take samples of its surface and return them back to Earth. Sample return missions are technically very difficult and in all of history the number of attempts numbers in the single digits.

The Mars Phoenix Lander was sent on its long mission to Mars for really one purpose: to find ice. The region selected was seen as one of the more likely places on Mars to have an ice table that is closer to the surface and hopefully available to its robotic arm deployed just a few days ago.

The above image was taken yesterday by that robotic arm and lead scientists suspect that the bright patch visible in the image is the very ice they have been looking for. It would seem that when Phoenix’s thrusters were fired to slow the lander down for a soft touch-down – that all the dust and soil below it was blown away to reveal a smooth and highly reflective surface.

It is not yet official… but this could mean mission accomplished for Phoenix.

So much for descent images… here is Phoenix in its resting place also taken by Mars Recon. Seen here is the lander on top, the heat shield (with a bounce mark) and the parachute below (which appears to have fallen nicely elongated).

In the second image, the Phoenix Lander is the barely visible speck in the center of the white box. The third image is essentially the same image as seen earlier here, just less contrast added. Click the center image (or here) for the full-res from Emily Lackdawalla’s Planetary Blog.

Near “true” color made by Gordan Ugarkovic using the only RED, GREEN and BLUE filtered images returned from the mission thus far. Additional adjustments were made by looking at the logo and the American flag (which we have an idea of what those color are supposed to look like) and adjusting the color of those items to appear as what we know are “true colors”. Logic then dictates that if those items are correctly balanced, then the Martian soil will also appear close to accurate.

This image represents the very first time we have been able to acquire a visual on any kind of probe landing on the surface of another moon/planet. What is (clearly) seen here is the Mars Phoenix lander in the parachute phase of its descent. You can even make out the shape of the thin threads that hold Phoenix tethered to its chute.

Normally a visit to another world is a solitary experience, but as many as 3 other probes already in orbit around Mars (Mars Reconnaissance, Mars Express and Mars Odyssey) were timed out to be in the general overhead vicinity of the Phoenix landing. It just so happens that one of them, Mars Recon, has very sharp eyes.