RIP Mars lander Phoenix

The Mars lander Phoenix, which has been shralping the Arctic plains since May, has sent its final transmission. The New York Times describes the machine's spacedust-addled final moments as a harrowing ordeal similar to me trying to use my iPod this morning:

The spacecraft first put itself into a low-energy “safe mode,” then fell silent. It revived itself on Oct. 30, but, with the dust still swirling, was never able to fully recharge its batteries. Each day, the solar panels would generate enough electricity for the spacecraft to wake up, but then the batteries drained again.

The Phoenix mission was a success for NASA. It confirmed the presence of ice on the surface of the planet, tested the soil, and took thousands of photos. It was expected to only last for 3 months but was extended twice. It also made a twitter account and posted 605 updates (the last few are posthumous) which gathered 38,000 followers.

There's a really slim chance that Phoenix will be reincarnated as Zombie Phoenix if it's electronics survive being encased in Martian ice for several months. 

Ski Season Begins Early... on Mars.

Artist's rendition of me, starting today.

Pheonix, the little lander that could, has detected snow falling on Mars. Is this water-based snow or what? I don't know; who cares; It's snowing on fucking Mars, the home of the biggest mountain in the entire solar system, Olympus Mons!!!!!!!! I know this might disappoint you all, but I'm quitting my job as a full time JetMan to pursue another career: Inter-Planetary Shralping.

Praise Science Update: Post-Memorial-Day-Weekend Life Reconstruction

Artist's rendition of what your PS writers were doing over the weekend.

My Science, what a weekend. It's been pretty quiet on PS for a few days now, but there is a reason for that. Over the long weekend I traveled back to Washington to compete in the ridiculously awesome Ski to Sea race with fellow PS writer Aaron (ACSlater) and others. During a brief stop over in Seattle, we had a short beer/tear-filled reunion with Peter N (PeterNov) and later on with Kyle (Guster). Even though the Internet fulfills all of our social requirements, it was still nice to see some of my comrades-in-Science face to face again. Also, I heard that Manuel (MV) and a bunch of other people including Kyle had a wonderful time camping near Chelan. So, in conclusion, we were all too busy/drunk to post anything. Get over it.

To make up for it, here is some exciting new Mars-related news. The Phoenix Mars Lander landed safely on Sunday without asploding, which is awesome news. NASA's page for the mission, with what appears to be fairly regular updates, is here. Also, in response to an article written in March, a U.S. soldier says that he, and others like him are prime candidates for possible future one-way missions to Mars. I like where his head is at.

Phoenix Lander Has Built In Zombie Mode: NASA Unleashes Undead Robots Upon the Cosmos

If anyone has been following the unfortunate history of Martian landing vehicles you would know that they fail a lot, a whole lot. It is a failure rate that puts the Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death into some serious perspective. So imagine my glee when I discovered that another multi-million dollar coin flip is going down this Sunday when the Phoenix Lander tries an end run for the Martian polar tundra (full details). Im betting it is gonna crash and burn like its auspicious predecessor the Mars Polar Lander, but if it doesn't it will do a whole host of sciency things on the surface. It cannot move, but oh boy! can it dig.
The reincarnated lander is working against the clock, since the Martian winter almost certainly means it will end up frozen into uselessness. But in a stark display of poor planning the people at NASA gave this robot a "Lazarus" mode that will presumably utilize some kind of dark magic to power undead Lander. If this Lander somehow spreads its undeath to the rest of the Mars probes, we could be facing a hostile horde of undead rovers and motionless weather stations.

'Recent' Weather on Mars Means... Nothing, Really :(

Mars has weather! Or did, 100 million years ago, which in Mars time is like half of a split fucking second. How did they figure this out? Glaciers!
Super duper high resolution imagery taken a year ago by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provided images like the one above and some pie-throwing Smart Dudes at Brown University have deduced from it that Mars had an active atmosphere as late as 100 million years ago. What does that mean to us space-travel-interested types? It means that:

This evidence of recent activity means the Martian climate may change again and could bolster speculation about whether the Red Planet can, or did, support life.

How... mild.