APOD: Phoenix And The Holy Cow (2008 Nov 12)

[orin stepanek]

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081112.html

Now that we rest the Phoenix in peace; we can reflect that its greatest accomplishment was finding water. I never did learn whether any type of microbes were discovered. Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention.

Orin

[BMAONE23]

I don't know that the probe had the capability to discern Microbial life forms (if they're there) but only their possible chemical signatures. I wonder if anyone could produce a "Blink" image showing the original landing date image and the later (october) image to indicate how much subilmation had occured
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoen ... p_001.html

[orin stepanek]

This is all I found! http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001526/ I don't know about the sublimation. I don't know if results from the other ovens were reported.
Orin

[iamlucky13]

No microbes. That wasn't in Phoenix's job description. It could have potentially, but didn't, find miscellaneous hints of past life, like methane or calcium carbonate. It did find some minerals of the sort that would be favorable to plant life.

There were two TEGA ovens that never received samples, due partially to time (it took longer to deliver samples than planned due to the unexpected stickiness), and partially to the door problem. Three samples ran completely a while ago (minimum success criteria for TEGA). Two more ran in the last couple weeks but no results have been discussed yet. Lastly, one had a sample delivered in the last couple weeks, sealed nice and tight, but never had a chance to run.

I haven't seen any blink images from underneath the lander, but there's some from the trenches. I didn't dig around the Phoenix site very thoroughly for them, but here's a side-by-side comparison over four days:

[orin stepanek]

Thanks Iamlucky! I was hoping more of the results were released. I supose in due time they will be. Maybe the results from the other ovens were more of the same.

Orin

[neufer]

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081112.html

Now that we rest the Phoenix in peace; we can reflect that its greatest accomplishment was finding water.

Odyssey's going to start listening for Phoenix
Jan. 11, 2010 | 16:26 PST | Jan. 12 00:26 UTC
By Emily Lakdawalla

<<"Mars Odyssey will pass over the Phoenix landing site approximately 10 times each day during three consecutive days of listening this month and two longer listening campaigns in February and March." Why now? "The amount of sunshine at Phoenix's site is currently about the same as when the lander last communicated, on Nov. 2, 2008, with the sun above the horizon about 17 hours each day. The listening attempts will continue until after the sun is above the horizon for the full 24.7 hours of the Martian day at the lander's high-latitude site."

Can Phoenix rise from the ashes a second time? The mission acquired its name when a spacecraft built for a canceled mission, Mars Surveyor, was hauled out of storage and converted into NASA's north polar lander. Phoenix landed on Mars on May 25, 2008 and sent its last transmission to Earth on November 2 after 152 Martian days of operations. The solar-powered lander fell silent, as expected, when oncoming polar winter resulted in too little sunlight to charge the lander's batteries.

Over the ensuing Martian winter, the spacecraft has not only experienced continuous darkness and frigid temperatures, but has also been encased in dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) as Mars' atmosphere condensed over the northern pole. HiRISE images show that the spacecraft and its associated hardware are still visible on the northern polar plains, but it's not possible to tell from the images whether the spacecraft is intact or not.

Five views of the Phoenix lander from HiRISE

Credit: NASA / JPL / UA / animation by Emily Lakdawalla

The most important question is whether the solar panels are still attached and still in any condition to provide power. And the only way we'll know the answer to that question is if the spacecraft miraculously wakes up and starts talking to us. The release quotes Chad Edwards, chief telecom engineer for Mars missions at JPL, as saying "We do not expect Phoenix to have survived, and therefore do not expect to hear from it. However, if Phoenix is transmitting, Odyssey will hear it. We will perform a sufficient number of Odyssey contact attempts that if we don't detect a transmission from Phoenix, we can have a high degree of confidence that the lander is not active.">>