The Mars Phoenix Lander has completed its 296-day, 422 million-mile journey to Mars on a mission to find signs of life. Directors had remained anxious over the first-ever landing of a probe near Mars' north pole, saying there was about a 50-50 chance of a successful touchdown

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/05/25/mars.lander/index.html

Scientists believe the probe will find organic evidence of life that once existed on the Red Planet, which is pretty huge news!

Discuss this recent event as well as the relative stagnation of space exploration since the end of the Cold War!

Now all we need is to find Martians

they're looking for the building blocks of life here instead of y'know little green men. They believe that in the area water is just under thr ground and within reach. If it is then it's a major step. I mean jesus all they need to do is find fossilised evidence of bacteria and so much it'll be one of the biggest discoveries ever
Mars exploration is really interesting, and I wish it'd recieve a bigger budget (as well as other prolonged space projects)

i really like watching those videos of the people who have been working on these projects for years just watching it all pay off so well like that. also cool, i've been looking forward to them doing this and i'll deinitely follow the progress of this thing, cos i fuckin love space!

Anyways, I was watching the news and heard that the solar panels aren't working correctly or something, so the Lander will only be able to operate for a couple of months/years instead of indefinitely (perhaps forever!) like it should have. The news may have been wrong as they often are, but I was just wondering if anyone could confirm/deny this?

I think you've got the wrong spacecraft bub. That sounds like the news from one of the earlier ones that they said were only going to work for xxxx amount of time but ended up continuing to process data for a couple years.

anyways, here's some pictures (from http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/)



http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/230122main_false_color_postcard_edr.jpg

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/230118main_false_color_postcard.jpg

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/230094main_SS000EFF896228773_10CA8R8M1_8877.jpg



Make sure to tell me if you guys see any aliens or bacteria. I'll notify my buds at the Univ. of Arizona.

apparently even the first images, such as this one, are indicative of melting and refreezing permafrost. however, this could have happened thousands of years ago or could still be present!

At least if more evidence of very primitive life was found on mars, it would show that life isn't nearly as rare in space as we thought it was, which makes the probability of ever finding intelligent life or other planets suitable for us out there that much greater.
(of course that doesn't change the problem of getting us to reach these planets, with faster than light travel theoretically impossible and all!)

I've been following this for the past few weeks, so I'm really glad that it landed successfully.

What'd be REALLY cool is if when the probe dug something, it found a FOSSIL of an ancient lifeform beyond that of bacteria.  Like a small lizard-type thing or something, you know?  Chances of that are just unlikely beyond anything, but it'd definitely be VERY cool.

--Terin

Wow. This is amazing. I mean, life on Mars, cool or water, but if it's like plants or water, than what does it really matter? I yes, great discovery, but it's not particularly relevant to our everyday life over here. It's not really life changing or anything. Space-plants and space-water sound cool, but are kind of useless in the long-run. (And everyone knows that space bacteria is just going to kill us all in some ridiculous TV-movie epidemic.)

Now, intelligent life is a different story.

If they find plants then I'm pretty sure everyone will be convinced that it is possible that life (and not just plants, animals too) exists in other planets as well. In the end the world will become better.

I've been following this for the past few weeks, so I'm really glad that it landed successfully.

What'd be REALLY cool is if when the probe dug something, it found a FOSSIL of an ancient lifeform beyond that of bacteria.  Like a small lizard-type thing or something, you know?  Chances of that are just unlikely beyond anything, but it'd definitely be VERY cool.

--Terin

With all the layers of dust and shit that's accumulated I'd think all the fossils would be really far down (like miles down)

Yeah, which is why I said it was unlikely beyond anything.

I was watching something on National Geographic last night, where they actually said they discovered the possibility of water by a fluke, though.  From what it sounded like, the wheel of one of the rover's sunk into the sand or broke and dragged and caused a trench or something.  I can't remember the specifics, but the point was that it was kind of a fluke.

I'd just be amused if we had another fluke and found something that showed some sign of life...  Some type of currently living life, past life, etc.  That would be incredible!

And even then, fossils on Mars might not even last forever.  In order for fossils to be preserved, they need to not be under too much pressure (otherwise they eventually turn into some kind of organic break-down ala oil, if I recall correctly), but under enough pressure to be "frozen" and preserved.  That and various agents in fossilization...  Anyway, my point being that, yes, it is VERY unlikely.  Almost impossible.

But there was a fluke to basically sketch the idea that there was water on Mars -- maybe another fluke will show something else?

--Terin

did anyone else see the landing live on tv?

I really hope the probe identifies some microbes or something. A long shot, but any evidence of life would be really fascinating.

Hey I got a question, since mars is so far away from earth and whatnot wouldn't the landing have actually happened sooner than what we saw from Earth?

Or is Mars still fairly close so there still wasn't any real difference???

Hey I got a question, since mars is so far away from earth and whatnot wouldn't the landing have actually happened sooner than what we saw from Earth?

Or is Mars still fairly close so there still wasn't any real difference???

I personally didn't watch, but I'm fairly certain that what we see on TV is a 3D-model computerized simulation of the craft landing based upon the live data they are receiving. When people say they "watched" the landing, they usually just mean they were watching mission control sitting in their nerdy uniforms throwing hi-5's around or frantically talking to each other (depending on the situation)