NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander lands on Mars May 25

that white thing in top left is a parachute, right?

 

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By the way, there's the DVD with my friend's name on it. Hope the Martians have a good DVD drive.

 

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Only 1 DVD to take? No case? Cheapskates.

 

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it could be worse: if that DVD is made of plastic it will decay under the ionizing radiation flux into goo in a few thousand years anyway. Silicon oxide and gold would make for a long lasting DVD (though brittle).

 

Hum,
could be the backshell

Colour View to Northwest of NASA Mars Phoenix Lander

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Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University

 

Hum,
i managed to get my name on there too.

 

Cleanwroom-

You're doin it wrong!

 

Mai new litterboks, yezz this will do nicely...

 

A bolt from the Lander?

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Credit: NASA/JPL-Calech/University of Arizona

 

It's actually made of silica glass, apparently.

"As part of our Messages from Earth project, The Planetary Society collected names to travel to Mars on board the Phoenix lander. I'm happy to announce the silica glass mini-DVD with a quarter million names on it (including all Planetary Society members) has been installed on the Phoenix spacecraft and is ready to go to Mars!

In addition to the names, the disc also contains Visions of Mars, a collection of literature and art about the Red Planet. The names and Visions of Mars were written to the silica mini-DVD by the company Plasmon OMS using a special technique. The resulting archival disk should last at least hundreds of years on the Martian surface, ready to be picked up by future explorers.

After the disc was written, a special label was applied to the disc to identify it for future explorers. Then, the whole assembly was "baked out" (to kill microbes and also to reduce future outgassing of the materials), and Lockheed Martin in Colorado installed it onto the spacecraft."
http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/messages/20070523.html​

 

Ice?

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http://planetary.org/blog/article/00001481/

 

Silica glass = Silicon oxide
But good, now it will actually last for eons (Figure the reflective side is gold)

 

I heard the scoop finally got to the sand to the gas analyzer instrument and MECA( Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer ).

 

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I think it will take a week for the analysis to get the results of the soil.

 

there isalready some dust on those solar panels

 

Do you have any numbers to back this up? Studies?

 

The robotics that they have are this slow and awkward, and we've been working on robotics for how many years now?

 

Does anyone realize? Having an atmosphere on Mars makes it a lot easier to land because wind erosion creates much flatter plains with smaller rocks. A wheeled vehicle can land on that kind of terrain. The boulders on the moon take much longer to break down.

 

Water.

 

Tons of it would be a help but then some cosmic rays will still penetrate even that amount.

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