Phoenix Lands On Mars

Some of you would have heard me in the IRC awhile ago counting down the metres until the Phoenix lander touched down on Mars…

Phoenix is the first successful lander that we have sent to the northern polar region on Mars, the last one was shot down by the Martians along with its Orbiter =p

Its no IPX Eagle..

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/

We know from the data that the orbiters that we have sent around Mars, thanks to their ground penetrating dradis..i mean, radar, that there is a layer of “perma-frost” (don’t quote me on this), i think, just under the surface of the soil, at least around the area where Phoenix has landed.
Phoenix is a lander, not a rover. It will stay where it has landed, and use a robotic arm to scoop up soil samples from around it, and drop them back off onto the landers instrument deck to be analyzed for things such as chemicals that would indicate the presence of a hospitable environment earlier in Mars history, if not, chemical traces indicating that microbal life had once inhabited another planet other then our own, sending all the religious nuts into total anarchy and a buying and selling frenzy on wall street will cause all the worlds financial computers to crash and plunge the world into the new dark ages of death because science is evil and against God and must be destroyed, Did I mention my nose is on fire and I have forty wild badgers in my trousers?

Congratulations to the mission team for a successful landing on Mars, and for putting it down with only half a degree tilt ;p