Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Physics Forum Mars landing in 21 Days

NASA's Phoenix Spacecraft is due to land at the Martian North Pole in 21 days.
It will be a nail biting mission hours before it lands, as it has to turn into its correct orientation just minutes before landing, its onboard Radar will be avoiding the thousands of rocks in the final designated landing site.

The Phoenix lander will be landing on or close to the actual ice on Mars, that will be melting in the Martian Summer sun.
The lander will be testing and sampling actual water, making this lander very different from previous ones, which have only checked for the signs of water in the Martian distant past.

The Phoenix lander has an onboard Radar hazard detector coupled to its Hydrazine control nozzels, which should enable it to avoid the larger rocks, a couple of minutes before it lands.
After landing, and Solar panel deployment, Phoenix will probably be digging for up to 2.5 hours every Martian day.
Pity the Phoenix cannot move, on its telescopic legs.
It is expected to get covered in hoar frost every night.
Eventually it will check for human habitability

Check out the "live landing clock", and the latest news at-

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

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/mars141.php

Can't wait...we wish it well

Hello Mike,

It is exciting and I hope it all goes well. I hope Mars is much more than expected to be.

best regards,
odin1

While I think the colonization of Mars is sort of the wrong step I understand that it could teach us lots of lessons in the colonization and terra forming of planets, so I hope everything goes well.

Hello Rallem - and everyone,

Have been gone for a few days.

A lot will have to be done before colonization occurs. But, I hope we do. I would hope the red planet could become the blue and green planet one day. It would be nice to have a sister.

best regards,
odin1

That is why I think we should colonize the other red planet Venus. It has an iron core and it is possible to create a magnetic field if we get the planet to spin, (in theory) but Mars has no iron core so that is impossible. I am still skeptical that Mars will ever be able to hold a thicker atmosphere than it already does because there just isn't enough mass.

But Mars rotates already. It's day is similar to Earths. A Martian day is 24.7 hrs. I takes Venus 2802 hrs. to complete a rotation. Mars diameter is 95% that of Earths and 80% of Earth's mass. I haven't put the figures to it yet but you take this into account and Mars is very similar to Earth other that atmosphere. A change in atmosphere would change other small differences. For the biggest bang for the buck, I'll put my money on Mars.

best regards,
odin1

Mars has approximately half the radius of Earth and only one-tenth the mass, being less dense, but its surface area is only slightly less than the total area of Earth's dry land.[4] While Mars is larger and more massive than Mercury, Mercury has a higher density. This results in a slightly stronger gravitational force at Mercury's surface. The red-orange appearance of the Martian surface is caused by iron(III) oxide, more commonly known as hematite, or rust.[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars

It's landed! After travelling at many miles per second for months, it touched down at 5mph, and is standing almost perfectly vertically. A flawless mission so far.

Hey rendewenur,

Did you see the Martian snow skiing by the camera?

just kidding
odin1

hey, it is ok to tell a lie as long as you tell one big enough that everyone knows it's a lie!

theres more here is the main phoenix mission site if anyone wants to see more images from the mission.



and heres a small movie in quicktime 27 mb

Would that it were so easy, but sorry to disappoint you, odin1. Image enhancement shows that it was no Martian. It was Santa Claus on summer vacation.

"Cool" stuff. Thanks mucho.

rendewnur,

I quit believing in Santa Claus when Elvis told me he didn't exist 2 years ago.

I'm too smart for that!

odin1