Mars, God of War

One week ago an emissary from Earth landed near the north pole of Mars. The Phoenix Mars Mission has a primary goal of determining how much water ice is on Mars which will be a big factor in shaping how humans ultimately might be able to colonize the planet.

Planetary colonization is not just the stuff of science fiction. If we are to survive as a species then we must expand beyond planet Earth. Human population continues to rise; resources continue to dwindle here on Earth. But there are other planets in our solar system with mineral and water resources that we can utilize. Even the asteroid belt is full of chunks of water ice and metals.

But enough of our possible future, back to current events: Even though the lander has only been on Mars for a week there are a number of incredible images from this mission. One of my favorites was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It captured an image of the Phoenix as it was descending towards the surface. This is the first time an image has been captured of a spaceship coming in to land on another planet. Check out the image here.

My other favorite image was first distributed yesterday and is shown as the current image on the Astronomy Picture of the day site. NASA had been hoping that they might be able to dig down through the soil with the lander’s robotic arm to reach water ice, but the braking rockets on the lander may have already exposed some ice under Phoenix. Check out an image from under the lander here. If you don't see the image, click on the archive link and look for June 2nd.

The artist’s rendering of the Phoenix lander shown at the top of this post is from this site.

Here’s an interesting fact you might not know: on Mars when the sun sets the sky turns blue but during the day the sky is pink - just the opposite of Earth.