It looks like the Phoenix Mars lander is dead. Scientists have not heard anything from it for over a week now, and they have acknowledged the inevitable: the scrappy lander is out of power, and unable to do any more experiments, and incapable of reporting them anyway. They have declared the mission operations phase of Phoenix to be complete.
Designed to only last 90 days, it actually kept going for about twice that long. It landed in late May 2008, and the last signal was detected in early November. The primary science mission was to look for ice beneath the surface of Mars and to examine the soil directly. It had a scoop that picked up samples of the "soil" and dropped them into an oven. Baking them released chemicals that could be analyzed.
 |
| What lies beneath? Ice. |
As it sat near the Martian north polar cap, Phoenix did in fact find ice just below the surface (not too surprising, really, but nice to confirm). It found the soil was alkaline, and also detected perchlorates. These are oxidizers, and if concentrated enough can kill terrestrial biological organisms. However, oxidizers are also needed for life; I’ve often wondered if you could have a sophisticated biochemistry using them on other planets. Clays and calcium carbonates found by Phoenix also indicate that water was once present at the site.
The science it did was very cool, but one of the more interesting stories was the detection of falling snow in the atmosphere of Mars. Somehow, Earthlike weather on Mars brought this story home.
Weather brought down Phoenix as well. It wasn’t designed to last forever. It used solar panels, and winter was setting in. The lowering Sun and bitter cold made things difficult, but in late October a sand storm may have done the final deed.
But the mission was a success. It was a tricky landing, a difficult mission, and the science was delicate. But it delivered, and now we know more about Mars than we did before. Still, the search continues. Why did Mars die? What happened to its atmosphere, where is all the water we know was there, why did it evolve so differently than Terra Mater? And what implications do these have for our own home planet?
Phoenix itself is almost certainly dead (we might get a tiny bit more out of it if conditions are just right, though probably not), but we will continue to explore, to reach out to our sister world. Someday I’d like to see the view from an astronaut’s helmet camera. That won’t be for decades, for sure, and until then we’ll continue to send our robot proxies there. With Phoenix we’ve literally only scratched the surface of the Red Planet.
Image credit:NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/Max Planck Institute.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Is there any chance that the lander will be able to power up and wake up after winter?
November 11th, 2008 at 11:29 am
But, Phil, Bob Park and Steven Weinberg have shown what a waste of resources manned space exploration is! [/sarcasm]
November 11th, 2008 at 11:35 am
I’m hoping that one day, that lander along with all other Mars landers will be found and put into a museum. I can imagine covered cities being built on Mars, and the museums being built around the still standing landers. So, in a few hundred years, little kids will gather around the old cordoned-off relic and will read a nice plaque that says ‘Phoenix Lander: Arrived from earth in 2008 and operational for 180 days…”
November 11th, 2008 at 11:36 am
I like the idea of a “Martian Monuments to Exploration” tour of Mars.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:44 am
I say that one of the first tasks of a manned mission to Mars is to build an actual face on Mars. Inside it would be a museum/colony, but outside resemble all those grainy photos that gave rise to conspiracy theories.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:46 am
And the MERs are still alive….
November 11th, 2008 at 11:52 am
I think it’s great that you refer to Earth as Terra Mater, since its literal translation from Latin happens to be the phrase I use to refer to ancient Earth in my webcomic, Unity, as seen at http://beesbuzz.biz/d/20071003.php
(Unity is set millions of years in the future on a space arc built by humans but now populated entirely by intelligent descendants of various Earth species. I try to keep the science fairly accurate/plausible although of course it’s a work of fiction, and of course there’s a fair amount of hand-waving.)
November 11th, 2008 at 11:54 am
I’ve heard a few cable news and radio (NPR) commentators use the phrase “encased in a block of ice” with reference to the fate of the Phoenix Lander in the Martian winter. Perhaps they’re just saying it will get too cold or are the Martian snow drifts actually expected to cover it?
November 11th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Congrats to NASA for another mission well done. We get a huge bang for our bucks with these robotic ones. If they find evidence that life existed on Mars at one point (or maybe still does beneath the soil) it would be just world shattering.
November 11th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
I suppose you haven’t heard from your insider NASA buddies about how it was WATER damaged…
hah.. huge sandstorm.. what a joke!
November 11th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Re: Phoenix waking up next spring? They have said they will make an attempt once the sun comes back to the polar regions, but given the extremely low temperatures it would have to endure, it’s a long shot at best. However, given the benefits of having a working Mars-based lander for another summer, it’s certainly worth making an effort even if it’s likely a futile one.
November 11th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Wow, Pierre, what a fantastic image.
November 11th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Anybody know how many of the TEGA ovens were used?
November 11th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
In an interview on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe (episode 171), Diana Blaney (a co-investigator on the mission for the JPL) said that at the extreme temperatures the lander would see, the landers batteries would breakdown and there was almost no chance that they would survive the winter. Without batteries, Phoenix is dead.
November 11th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
The dust devils are still my favorites. For some reason, for me, that made Mars more a *place* than an abstraction, like Carl Sagan said.
November 11th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
It was kind of sad listening to the press conference yesterday, even though we all knew the day would come sooner or later when the spacecraft would just go to sleep forever. I liked it when they said they’d listen in for a few more weeks to see if the lander wakes up intermittently and tries to phone home. Probably they won’t hear anything, but at least they’ll give it the old college try.
November 11th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Just think if Phoenix were powered by a small radio thermal generator instead of solar panels.
It could have kept running all winter, and probably for years and years.
I expect the primary reason it didn’t have an RTG was because the anti nuclear knee jerks go nuts whenever we launch an RTG. I’m not dismissing the risk of launching nuclear material, but Phoenix would only have required a small RTG with a tiny amount of radioactive material. If launched from one of the pads in the south pacific, the potential for harm to humans would have been nearly zero.
November 11th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Not only would the batteries be unlikely to survive, but think about the solar panels! They are likely to get covered with snow and they are designed to be light, not strong. They solar panels will probably snap off as snow builds up making the batteries a moot point anyway.
The Phoenix team should be celebrating a job well done!
November 11th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Given the proximity of the moon, maybe we should make a “robotic” outpost there. Perhaps with a continuous, live webfeed of the view from the moon. How AWESOME would that be?
November 11th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Dr. Phil Plait:
I think those questions were answered in that TV Serial/Movie entitled Quatermass and the Pit. Click on my name for the Wikipedia entry and synopsis. That film is overdue for a John Carpenter remake.
November 11th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
David – I’m pretty sure the next Mars rover (the science lab) is going to use RTG’s for power.
And it also has a really cool EDL plan. No more air bags.
November 11th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Does anyone expect snowfall accumulation? I did not think so. I thought the “snow” was in the atmosphere. Not something that actually accumulates. Can someone clarify this?
November 11th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
The temperature at Phoenix’s location is expected to drop down to -150C, possibly lower. At that temperature what will be covering Phoenix will be CO2 ice. According to Wikipedia the CO2 ice layer at the martian north pole is one metre thick during winter.
November 11th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
In Memoriam.
So. Farewell then Phoenix.
You spred your wings
And froze to death.
Faraway.
November 11th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
the scrappy lander is out of power
I thought it was “plucky”, not “scrappy”.
Oh, wait, “plucky” is for rovers.
In any case, awesome job, NASA, JPL and the University of Arizona.
November 11th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
To Pierre:
I love the image of what you wrote: Visiting the landers in a museum. Very nice! Here’s one to add to it that I have always hoped for. Let man progress to where planetary travel is routine. Then we take off and round up all the early planetary probes such as Voyager, Pioneer, and New Horizons that have “escaped” the solar system. We know their trajectories. It shouldn’t be too hard for 30th century man to locate and capture them, and bring them back. Then they can be put along side the Martian landers as monuments to our earliest space faring days. Perhaps in a domed “Tranquility Base” museum……….
November 11th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
let’s hope the Heineken robot lasts longer!
November 11th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I dunno, American Voyager. To me, anyway, retrieving those probes is not the way to go. I think they should be allowed to travel through infinity undisturbed. It seems more “respectful” to me somehow. I wouldn’t raise the Titanic, nor would I make plaster casts out of Neil Armstrong’s bootprint on the lunar regolith. Some things are meant to be left alone, and while your idea is certainly intriguing, I think the probes should be allowed to go on their merry way, undisturbed by the museum curators of the future.
It would be interesting to time-travel to the future to see the inevitable debate over that.
November 11th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Phoenix’s last twitter brought a tear to my eye.
Reproduced here, it reads simply:
“01010100 01110010 01101001 01110101 01101101 01110000 01101000 <3″
Or, for the binary illiterate, “Triumph”
November 11th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
We have learned so much from it, yet, it feels like we have learned nothing. So much things to learn, so little time.
November 11th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
mission operations phase? what’s the next phase, inert extraterrestrial litter phase?
November 11th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Let’s face it, if future Martian colonists were to try to visit Phoenix, it would be like us trying to visit Mawson’s hut in the Antarctic.
Slightly off topic – I can see it now… Club Med McMurdo.
November 11th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
It may not arise from the ashes, because there are no ashes on mars.
Could it possibly arise from the sands of mars?
November 11th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
@Quiet Desperation:
I agree about the dust devils.
Driving up to visit my parents in central washington, we always see tons of them whirling away across the dry landscape. One time, during the magic hour just before sunset, we were driving past a particularly flat stretch of desolate road in northern oregon and the red light of twilight lit up the dry wheat stubble in the fields, turning them all a dusky orange. On the horizon were two gigantic dust devils, which must have been spinning for quite some time because usually you don’t see them after 4 or 5 in the afternoon. Anyway, for a second or two, it was like driving on some far off alien world. Where was Ray Bradbury when I needed him?
November 11th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
I agree with you, GumbyTheCat. Let the probes go on.
My wife, 7-year-old son, and I watched the Phoenix landing on the Science Channel. It doesn’t get much better than that.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Well done & Thanks to ‘Phoenix’ and its team of operators.
Sad to see it end.
Great to see it do so well.
Wonder if it will be fossilised and visited in the future …?
As noted already we still have a lot of marvellous machines scanning Mars from orbit and rovers ‘Spirit’ and ‘Opportunity’ continue to roam the russet sands.
PS. Yes, let the ‘Voyagers’ & others continue their endless voyage I’d say.
——————————-
“There were no fires in the Martian desert. In fact of all the worlds in the solar system only Earth with its oxygen-rich atmosphere knew fire.”
- Page 43, ‘Voyage’, Stephen Baxter, Harper-Collins, 1996.
We have brought our fire to Mars, one day I hope we’ll terraform it and bring it to life again.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Cheyenne said on Nov. 11th, 2008 at 1:28 pm :
“David – I’m pretty sure the next Mars rover (the science lab) is going to use RTG’s for power. And it also has a really cool EDL plan. No more air bags.”
Actually Phoenix landed using rockets and NOT airbags. Short memories people!
anon (a member of the Troll family mayhaps?) said rather rudely on November 11th, 2008 at 12:15 pm :
“I suppose you haven’t heard from your insider NASA buddies about how it was WATER damaged… hah.. huge sandstorm.. what a joke!”
What the __!? Think this through a second – water on Mars at temperatures where CO2 starts to freeze and pressures where H2O sublimates from ice into vapour without passing through a liquid stage inbetween? I don’t thinks so! (Rolling my eyes) eyes
… Or do you somehow mean they stuffed up before ‘Phoenix’ left Earth – in which case it wouldn’t have landed and worked so well for so long in the first place?
Water damage NOT a sandstorm has to be the joke idea, anon(ymous) dude!
IBY said on the 11th of the 11th, 2008 at 5:23 pm :
“We have learned so much from it, yet, it feels like we have learned nothing. So much things to learn, so little time.”
I agree with your last sentence there – but NOT your first.
‘Spose its a subjective matter, but personally I feel we’ve learned heaps from ‘Phoenix’ esp. about Martian soil chemistry and polar regions. We’ve learnt about the ice just under the polar soil, about snowflakes falling from the salmon hued Martian skies and that; to quote one of the ‘Phoenix’ scientists : “We can grow asparagus in the Martian polar soil!” Well, all that – particulaly that last point – seems like pretty worthwhile bits of info for this would-be gardner of the Red Weed!
(HG Wells ‘War of the Worlds’ reference there btw.)
——————-
“The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one,’ he
said!” – Line from Jeff Wayne’s Musical version of ‘War of the Worlds’,
performed 1978.
[Actually, we now know the odds against are many orders of magnitude
- SCR.]
higher - try a couple of billion trillion more like! Unless, that is those Martians are derived from us in the distant future when that planet has been terraformed and colonised!
“Few men realise the immensity of the vacancy in which the dust of the material universe swims.” – Page 7, ‘The War of the Worlds’, H.G. Wells, first published 1898, this edition : Aerie books, 1987.
“Nor was it generally understood that since Mars is older than our Earth, … it necessarily follows that it is not only more distant from life’s beginning but nearer its end.” – Page 4, ‘The War of the Worlds’ HG Wells, 1898, Aerie books 1987 for my edition.
[Actually, we know today that Mars & Earth are the same age - Well's was using an old idea of Kant's Nebular hypothesis for explaining our solar systems evolution - Ed.]
November 11th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Luis Plata Says:
November 11th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
“It may not arise from the ashes, because there are no ashes on mars.”
Yes there are! There are those spots where the failed probes – Beagle, Mars Polar Lander, Mars Observer, that Russian one that automatically landed despite the major duststorm raging at the time, etc .. all crashed!
November 11th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Actually Joker the Mars Observer one didn’t crash onto Mars – it was lost in space just before it could enter orbit.
The Russian (technically Soviet Union – USSR) one you’re referring to was Mars 2 in 1971. It actually landed okay and got the start of a photo back before it was blown over by the duststorm’s winds.
Russia / the Soviets also lost a few other probes notably Mars-96 which failed immediately after launch and the Japanese ‘Nozomi’ (Hope) turned not to be a brave failure too.
Funny how we always seem to forget the times when other non-NASA space agencies mess up ain’t it?
PS. Anyone know how to create those rolling-eye emoticons here?
November 12th, 2008 at 12:03 am
Argh! Typos! That’s supposed to read :
“.. and the Japanese spaceprobe ‘Nozomi’ (Hope) turned * out * to be a brave failure too.”
November 12th, 2008 at 3:50 am
JB of Brisbane,
Ah, Mawson’s Hut. Totally cool place if you can get there… Not hard to get to, just expensive and if you suffer from sea sickness, like I do, the crossing can be… unpleasant. I have some photos of Mawson’s if you click my name.
November 12th, 2008 at 4:18 am
StevoR,
like this?
November 12th, 2008 at 4:20 am
Which is done like this…
:roll:
November 12th, 2008 at 6:14 am
I think someone asked how many ovens Phoenix filled. IIRC only six of the eight were used, but mission planners had only assumed three would be filled. Also, only three of the four MECA cells were used. The soil was just too “clumpy,” and all the simulated samples at the University of Arizona and JPL could not match it. Shows you how valuable true experimentation is. No one would have suspected this before Phoenix.
Also a bad day for the Spirit Rover. A dust storm has covered its solar panels and dropped it to dangerous power levels. NASA scientists shut off communications until Thursday to save power. Keep your fingers crossed.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Wow, Nov. 9 was Spirit’s 725th day. Apparently the dust storm is easing but I haven’t seen mention of how they clean the solar panels or if it is possible at all? I suppose if it was a manned mission they’d send someone outside with a broom.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Lets remember that this mission brought us one of the coolest astro pics of all time, the “Phoenix Descending” HiRISE image. Click my name to see the *srsly embiggened* image at the Planetary Society. And big thanks to Emily for her awesome coverage of the mission.
I.saw.it.launch.
Bob(Big)
November 12th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Drat, I thought they were planning on Phoenix lasting until the end of December or early January. It would have been cool to see the condensation of carbon dioxide forming around the spacecraft. They are expecting something like half a meter of frozen CO2 to form around the spacecraft during the winter time. That would have been a very cool photograph to look out and see a winter landscape on Mars. Maybe there would have been frozen CO2 icecycles hanging off Phoenix’s arm. I guess now we’re not going to be receiving those cool pictures. I wonder if HiRISE can zoom in and get some of those shots now that Phoenix is dead.
November 12th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
That was me, Steve A. Thanks!
November 13th, 2008 at 5:28 am
shane Said : November 12th, 2008 at 4:18 am
“StevoR,
like this?
”
Exactly!
& then shane said :
”
“Which is done like this…
Thanks!
November 13th, 2008 at 5:33 am
shane also said on November 12th, 2008 at 8:20 am :
“Wow, Nov. 9 was Spirit’s 725th day. Apparently the dust storm is easing but I haven’t seen mention of how they clean the solar panels or if it is possible at all? I suppose if it was a manned mission they’d send someone outside with a broom.”
If I recall right the dust-devils that swept over the MERs ‘Spirit’ and ‘Opportunity’ actuallycleamned them off ratehr nicely and improve dtheir energy gathering capacities.
As for a manned mission using a broom toclear the solar panels, well I’d imagine just a damp cloth would suffice .. Although on second thoughts as soon as they stepped outside the cloth would freeze solid so maybe just a dry one would be best?
November 13th, 2008 at 5:42 am
Argh! Its always the italics …
TAKE II (Oh how I wish we could just EDIT these properly. Sigh.)
———-
shane also said on November 12th, 2008 at 8:20 am :
“Wow, Nov. 9 was Spirit’s 725th day. Apparently the dust storm is easing but I haven’t seen mention of how they clean the solar panels or if it is possible at all? I suppose if it was a manned mission they’d send someone outside with a broom.”
If I recall right the dust-devils that swept over the MERs ‘Spirit’ and ‘Opportunity’ actually cleaned them off rather nicely and improved their energy gathering capacities.
As for a manned mission using a broom to clear the solar panels, well I’d imagine just a damp cloth would suffice .. Although on second thoughts as soon as they stepped outside the cloth would freeze solid so maybe just a dry one would be best?
BigBob Said on November 12th, 2008 at 8:28 am :
“Lets remember that this mission brought us one of the coolest astro pics of all time, the “Phoenix Descending” HiRISE image. … I.saw.it.launch.
Bob(Big)”
Absolutely – I bet that shot will be in Phil’s 2008 Best images post!
It certainly deserves to be.
Yes, Steve A , my fingers and toes are crosed for ‘Spirit’ – now it & its sibling rover must be setting some kind of record for lasting so long already and heres hoping it keeps on roving for a while yet!
November 15th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Read some Epitaphs for the failing Lander:
http://www.vaboomer.com/the_portal_to_boomeranger/2008/11/epitaph-for-the-mars-lander.html