Mars Archives

October 31, 2008December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

TV Alert: Five Years on Mars

On Sunday evening Nov. 2, at 7 pm CST,(in the US; check your local listings) the National Geographic channel will be showing a special documentary on the Mars Exploration Rovers. It’s called “Five Years on Mars,” and dramatizes the trials and tribulations of the rovers Spirit and Opportunity and highlights new scientific information on the planet’s geology and water history.

If you saw the “Mars: Dead or Alive” and “Welcome to Mars” shows, this one should be even better. The show will feature photo-realistic animation based on the actual landscape as captured by the rovers’ cameras, and interviews with MER PI Steve Squyres and others on the rover team.

Check out the National Geographic channel’s website that has some very spiffy downloadable wallpapers (like the one above), videos and other information about the show and about the rovers and their mission. Robert Pearlman at CollectSPACE.com also has a great overview of the show and an interview with Steve Squyres.

When the landed on Mars in 2004, they were expected to collect data over 90 Martian days, or “sols.” But ninety days have stretched into almost five years, and a short-term science mission searching for evidence of ancient water has turned into one of the greatest adventures of the space age. The rovers have trekked miles across hostile plains, climbed mountains, ventured in and out of deep craters, gotten stuck in sand dunes, and survived dust storms and mechanical failures.

Mark Davis, who also served as writer/producer/director of the award winning “Mars Dead or Alive” and “Welcome to Mars,” teams with legendary animator Dan Maas (IMAX “Roving Mars”)

Don’t miss it!

October 30, 2008December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Phoenix Not Responding to Communications

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Update: 10/31: Phoenix communicated with NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter late Thursday. The communication reinforced a diagnosis that the spacecraft is in a precautionary mode triggered by low energy. Mission engineers are assessing the lander’s condition and steps necessary for returning to science operations.

The Phoenix Lander is not responding to attempts to communicate with it. Earlier today, we reported that Phoenix had gone into safe mode. The lander experienced a low-power fault in the electrical system due to the reduction of solar-electric power to shorter daylight hours and a dust storm, as well as extremely cold weather. Engineers for the mission were able to send a command to restart a battery that had shut off, and were hopeful that further communications would resume without incident. However, Phoenix did not respond to one of the Mars orbiter’s attempt to communicate with it Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not ready to say goodbye to Phoenix quite yet…

Mission controllers believe the most likely situation to be that declining power has triggered a pre-set precautionary behavior of waking up for only about two hours per day to listen for an orbiter’s hailing signal. If that is the case, the wake-sleep cycling would have begun at an unknown time when batteries became depleted.

“We will be coordinating with the orbiter teams to hail Phoenix as often as feasible to catch the time when it can respond,” said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “If we can reestablish communication, we can begin to get the spacecraft back in condition to resume science. In the best case, if weather cooperates, that would take the better part of a week.”

Stay tuned…

Source: JPL

October 30, 2008December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Phoenix Enters Safe Mode

Artist concept of the Phoenix lander. Credit: NASA

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Cold weather and a dust storm are likely contributors to why NASA’S Phoenix Mars Lander went into a “safe mode” late Tuesday. The lander experienced a low-power fault in the electrical system. While engineers anticipated that a fault could occur due to the diminishing power supply, the lander also unexpectedly switched to the “B” side of its redundant electronics and shut down one of its two batteries. During safe mode, the lander stops non-critical activities and awaits further instructions from the mission team. The good news is that within hours of receiving information of the safing event, mission engineers at JPL and Lockheed Martin in Denver, were successfully able to send commands to restart battery charging. So, it is not likely that any energy was lost. And Phoenix is still Twittering,, which is good news, too!

Weather conditions at the landing site in the north polar region of Mars have deteriorated in recent days, with overnight temperatures falling to –141F (-96C), and daytime temperatures only as high as -50F (-45C), the lowest temperatures experienced so far in the mission. A mild dust storm blowing through the area, along with water-ice clouds, further complicated the situation by reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the lander’s solar arrays, thereby reducing the amount of power it could generate. Low temperatures caused the lander’s battery heaters to turn on Tuesday for the first time, creating another drain on precious power supplies.

Science activities will remain on hold for the next several days to allow the spacecraft to recharge and conserve power. Attempts to resume normal operations will not take place before the weekend.
“This is a precarious time for Phoenix,” said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of JPL. “We’re in the bonus round of the extended mission, and we’re aware that the end could come at any time. The engineering team is doing all it can to keep the spacecraft alive and collecting science, but at this point survivability depends on some factors out of our control, such as the weather and temperatures on Mars.”

The ability to communicate with the spacecraft has not been impacted. However, the team decided to cancel communication sessions Wednesday morning in order to conserve spacecraft power.

Just a day ago, the mission announced plans to turn off four heaters, one at a time, in an effort to preserve power. The faults experienced late Tuesday prompted engineers to command the lander to shut down two heaters instead of one as originally planned. One of those heaters warmed electronics for Phoenix ‘s robotic arm, robotic-arm camera, and thermal and evolved-gas analyzer (TEGA), an instrument that bakes and sniffs Martian soil to assess volatile ingredients. The second heater served the lander’s pyrotechnic initiation unit, which hasn’t been used since landing. By turning off selected heaters, the mission hopes to preserve power and prolong the use of the lander’s camera and meteorological instruments.

But everything is on a downward trend. As the Martian northern hemisphere shifts from summer to autumn, less sunlight is reaching Phoenix’s solar panels. “It could be a matter of days, or weeks, before the daily power generated by Phoenix is less than needed to operate the spacecraft,” said JPL mission manager Chris Lewicki. “We have only a few options left to reduce the energy usage.” But Phoenix is into the fifth month of a 90-day mission — we should all be thankful we’ve had the little lander with us for as long as we have….

Source: JPL

October 28, 2008December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Engineers Begin Shutting Down Phoenix Lander Instruments

Phoenix lander. Credit: Canadian Space Agency

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It appears the end is nigh for the Phoenix Mars Lander. Today, engineers have begun to shut down some of the lander’s instruments and heaters. But this is in hopes of extending the mission by saving power as available sunlight begins to wane with the approach of Martian autumn. But at the same time, the spacecraft requires more power to run heaters in order to survive as the temperatures decline. “If we did nothing, it wouldn’t be long before the power needed to operate the spacecraft would exceed the amount of power it generates on a daily basis,” said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “By turning off some heaters and instruments, we can extend the life of the lander by several weeks and still conduct some science.”

Today, commands were sent to disable the first heater, one that warms the robotic arm, the robotic arm camera and the TEGA instrument – the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer. Likely, this means no more digging and no more “baking and sniffing” of soil samples. Engineers say by shutting down this heater, they’ll save 250 watt-hours of power.

Before power was shut down to the arm and the camera, Phoenix took one last image of the “Holy Cow” ice patch underneath the lander.

Over the next several weeks, four survival heaters will be shut down, one at a time, in an effort to conserve power. The heaters serve the purpose of keeping the electronics within tested survivable limits. As each heater is disabled, some of the instruments are also expected to cease operations. The energy saved is intended to power the lander’s main camera and meteorological instruments until the very end of the mission.

Engineers are also preparing for solar conjunction, when the sun is directly between Earth and Mars. Between Nov. 28 and Dec. 13, Mars and the sun will be within two degrees of each other as seen from Earth, blocking radio transmission between the spacecraft and Earth. During that time, no commands will be sent to Phoenix, but daily downlinks from Phoenix will continue through NASA’s Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance orbiters. At this time, controllers can’t predict whether the fourth heater would be disabled before or after conjunction.

In the final step, Phoenix engineers may turn off a fourth heater — one of two survival heaters that warm the spacecraft and its batteries. This would leave one remaining survival heater to run out on its own.

“At that point, Phoenix will be at the mercy of Mars,” said Chris Lewicki of JPL, lead mission manger.

The Phoenix team has parked the robotic arm on a representative patch of Martian soil. No additional soil samples will be gathered. The thermal and electrical-conductivity probe (TECP), located on the wrist of the arm, has been inserted into the soil and will continue to measure soil temperature and conductivity, along with atmospheric humidity near the surface. The probe does not need a heater to operate and should continue to send back data for weeks.

Throughout the mission, the lander’s robotic arm successfully dug and scraped Martian soil and delivered it to the onboard laboratories. “We turn off this workhorse with the knowledge that it has far exceeded expectations and conducted every operation asked of it,” said Ray Arvidson, the robotic arm’s co-investigator, and a professor at Washington University, St. Louis.

Source: JPL

October 28, 2008December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Precious Gems Discovered on Mars

Region on Mars where opal has been discovered. Credit: NASA/JPL

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The discovery of a water-based mineral on Mars by the spectrometer on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter suggests liquid water remained on the planet’s surface a billion years later than was previously thought, and it likely played an important role in shaping the planet’s surface and possibly hosting life. Hydrated silica, commonly known as opal, has been found across large region of Mars. “This is an exciting discovery because it extends the time range for liquid water on Mars, and the places where it might have supported life,” said Scott Murchie, the principal investigator for the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. “The identification of opaline silica tells us that water may have existed as recently as 2 billion years ago.”

The water-based mineral deposits are telltale signs of where and when water was present on ancient Mars. On Earth, opals consist of at least 3-10% water, and Precious Opal, the variety used most often in jewelry, have pockets of spheres that diffract light at various wavelengths, creating colors and a beautiful, if not valuable look. Opal is found in Australia, England and the western US.

On Mars, the hydrated silica has been found around Mars “Grand Canyon”. “We see numerous outcrops of opal-like minerals, commonly in thin layers extending for very long distances around the rim of Valles Marineris and sometimes within the canyon system itself,” said Ralph Milliken of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Until now, only two major groups of hydrated minerals, phyllosilicates and hydrated sulfates, had been observed by spacecraft orbiting Mars. Clay-like phyllosilicates formed more than 3.5 billion years ago where igneous rock came into long-term contact with water. During the next several hundred million years, until approximately 3 billion years ago, hydrated sulfates formed from the evaporation of salty and sometimes acidic water.

The newly discovered opaline silicates are the youngest of the three types of hydrated minerals. They formed where liquid water altered materials created by volcanic activity or meteorite impact on the Martian surface. One such location noted by scientists is the large Martian canyon system called Valles Marineris.

These types of minerals were also recently found in Gusev Crater by NASA’s Mars rover Spirit, are widespread and occur in relatively young terrains.

In some locations, the orbiter’s spectrometer observed opaline silica with iron sulfate minerals, either in or around dry river channels. This indicates the acidic water remained on the Martian surface for an extended period of time. Milliken and his colleagues believe that in these areas, low-temperature acidic water was involved in forming the opal. In areas where there is no clear evidence that the water was acidic, deposits may have formed under a wide range of conditions.

“What’s important is that the longer liquid water existed on Mars, the longer the window during which Mars may have supported life,” says Milliken. “The opaline silica deposits would be good places to explore to assess the potential for habitability on Mars, especially in these younger terrains.”

Source: JPL

October 24, 2008December 24, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Could Strange Mars Craters be from a Fallen Third Moon?

[/caption]Was there a third Martian moon orbiting the planet? Did Phobos and Deimos have a triplet sibling? According to the discovery of two elliptical impact craters, there might just have been another moon, but it ploughed into the Red Planet’s surface a long time ago. The moonlet would have been approximately 1.5 km wide (0.9 miles), and it will have succumbed to the Mars gravity, entering the atmosphere at a shallow angle. As it tumbled through the atmosphere it broke in two, hitting the surface and creating two elongated impact craters, near-perfectly aligned.

It is thought that the “third moon” of Mars dropped from orbit a billion years ago and the same will happen with Phobos in a few million years. However, there might be another explanation, with no third moonlet in sight…

Observations of the Martian surface, just north of Olympus Mons, show two oval-shaped craters (pictured top). Usually impact craters are approximately circular, so the elongated craters indicate the impactor(s) entered the atmosphere at a very shallow angle. This isn’t the only strange characteristic of these two craters. They lie 12.5 km (7.8 miles) apart and they are almost exactly aligned from east to west (they are off-alignment by only 3.48°). The larger crater is 10 km (6.2 miles) wide at its longest point, and the smaller crater is 3km (1.9 miles) wide.

There are two possible answers to this puzzle, but researchers are having a hard time in agreeing on which one. In a recent publication, John Chappelow and Rob Herrick of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, have calculated that the impact craters were caused by a small moon that entered the atmosphere, broke into two (due to atmospheric drag) and then struck the surface at an oblique angle of 10° or less. The moonlet would have been 1.5 km (0.9 miles) in diameter. This sounds feasible, after all for both craters to be aligned, one would think they came from the same mass, right?

NASAs Lunar Orbiter spacecraft imaged the Messier A (right) and B craters on the Moon. Messier A is about 11 km long (NASA) — The lunar Messier craters (NASA)

This moon-impact theory has a few drawbacks however. The first problem is that the impact craters are located at 40° latitude in Mars’ northern hemisphere. One would expect natural satellites to orbit around the equatorial plane if their orbits are stable (hovering around 0° latitude). “Any close natural satellite must, like Phobos, orbit in Mars’s equatorial plane,” said Jay Melosh, a crater expert at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who is highly sceptical of Chappelow and Herrick’s findings.

However, Herrick believes that the moonlet may not have established a stable orbit, above the equator. “We don’t know the details of the [moonlet’s] capture mechanism, so I don’t know that we can definitively say that the object must have moved to an equatorial orbit before spiralling in,” countered Herrick.

Artist impression of binary asteroid 90 Antiope (ESO)

Melosh argues that the craters may have been caused by a binary asteroid (or “double asteroids”) entering the Martian atmosphere at a very shallow angle. After all, there is a confirmed example of a binary asteroid impact on the Moon (a.k.a. the Messier craters on the Moon, pictured above). Chappelow however disputed this claim saying, “In such a case, the craters should be oriented randomly.” After all, wouldn’t the binary asteroid have a randomly oriented orbital plane?

Apparently not. It appears that over hundreds of thousands of years of asteroid evolution, the effect of sunlight has a huge role to play in the dynamics of binary asteroid formation. A process known as the “Yarkovsky-O’Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack Effect,” or the YORP Effect, causes the uneven heating of an asteroid. Carrying a tiny jolt of momentum, photons are emitted from the surface in jets, eventually causing the asteroid to spin. Eventually a piece of rock breaks loose, forming the binary asteroid. It would appear there is an observed trend for the majority of binary asteroids to orbit in the same plane as the rest of the Solar System.

So it seems possible that a binary asteroid could create the two elongated and aligned impact craters after all.

Regardless, whether a third moon or binary asteroid hit Mars, it will be of little comfort to Phobos. The moon (with a mean radius of 11 km) is slowly dropping in altitude due to tidal forces. In about 11 million years it will either crash into Mars or be ripped apart through gravitational shear. Either way, Phobos is a doomed moon.

Original Source: Space.com

October 23, 2008December 24, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Aldrin: Mars Pioneers Should Not Return to Earth

No coming back? The first Mars settlers should stay there (NASA/Ian O'Neill)

[/caption]Commenting on the strategy for the exploration of Mars, Buzz Aldrin, second man on the Moon and tireless space exploration advocate, has said that he believes the first explorers of the Red Planet should stay there. Following similar lines of the first European pioneers who settled in America, a small group of interplanetary explorers should expect to land, build, live and retire (probably even die) on Mars.

Setting up home on the Martian surface will be no easy thing (after all, the atmosphere is 100 times thinner than the Earth’s and the planet has no magnetic field to protect colonists from the ravages of solar radiation), but Mars offers far greater potential as a habitable world than any other Solar System option.

40 years after Aldrin landed on the Moon, one can understand his frustration that there is no current manned space exploration program leaving Earth orbit. Perhaps a pioneering effort to Mars will make all the difference – if we succeed there, who knows where it might lead…

The subject of sending a manned expedition to Mars has always been a controversial one. Who do we send? How long should the mission last? Is sending one explorer an option (it would certainly be cheaper)? Do we make plans for a return mission? What about the health risks? Do we set up a human colony in the first instance? Is it REALLY worth the effort and money? But whether you like it or not, mankind will always have the urge to venture beyond Planet Earth and colonize other worlds (whether the funding or political will is there or not, but that’s another story).

But how can it be done? There has been much speculation about the future of Mars exploration, and we are beginning to take the first baby-steps toward the ultimate goal – a manned mission. The Phoenix Mars lander is classed as a “scout mission” intended to aid the planning of future colonies; satellites such as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (the clue is in the name – you have to do a bit of reconnaissance before sending in the troops!) has the The Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) on board with the primary task of finding mineral deposits on the surface that might be of use to a manned settlement. Every mission we send to the Red Planet has some function to aid the planning of a future human presence on the Martian surface.

As if commenting on his personal experience of the Apollo Program, Buzz Aldrin has shared his views on manned exploration of Mars. As any manned spaceship could take up to 18 months to travel to Mars, Aldrin believes it makes more sense for the first mission to be a one-way trip. “That’s why you [should] send people there permanently,” said Aldrin. “If we are not willing to do that, then I don’t think we should just go once and have the expense of doing that and then stop.”

“If we are going to put a few people down there and ensure their appropriate safety, would you then go through all that trouble and then bring them back immediately, after a year, a year and a half?” Buzz added.

Currently, NASA and the European Space Agency has tentatively said they are planning for a trip to Mars by 2030 or 2040. The current idea is to send a small group of explorers (possibly six individuals) to Mars, but have all the life support systems and supplies already set up on the surface before they arrive. Once an outpost is established, more colonists can be sent out to join them. The first operational manned colony will probably be 30-strong.

However, these colonists will need to be unique individuals. “They need to go there more with the psychology of knowing that you are a pioneering settler and you don’t look forward to go back home again after a couple a years,” Aldrin said. But that’s not to say they’ll never return to Earth. Years down the line, there may be the opportunity for a return mission, depending on technological advancements. “At age 30, they are given an opportunity. If they accept, then we train them, at age 35, we send them. At age 65, who knows what advances have taken place. They can retire there, or maybe we can bring them back.”

Many will argue that a manned mission to Mars is a “waste of money,” after all, why go through the expense and risk of sending humans when robots can do the same job. Aldrin disagrees with this stance, pointing out that it makes more sense to have humans on the ground, making on-the-spot decisions. I would argue that robotic explorers can only achieve so much; we can send the most advanced analysis equipment on board the most advanced robot, but there is no substitute for human ingenuity and experience. Far more science can be done on the Martian surface by an astronaut rather than a remote controlled robot. If life really does exist on the Martian surface, a man on Mars will find it far quicker than any rover.

Why else send man to Mars? To “do things that are innovative, new, pioneering,” rather than letting manned space flight continue to be a disappointment, Buzz added. After all, the International Space Station hasn’t lived up to many expectations, and the last time we walked on the Moon was in 1972… perhaps we need to start making some bold moves in the direction of Mars before we can consider ourselves to be a space faring race.

Source: Physorg.com

October 21, 2008December 24, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

The Martian Ice-Filled, Oyster Shell-Shaped Crater (HiRISE Images)

The unusually-shaped polar crater is filled with ice (HiRISE/NASA)

[/caption]This striking view of the Martian surface shows a stark contrast (false colour) between ice deposits and layered deposits (composed mainly of ice, rock and regolith) on the edge of the polar ice cap. In the centre, there is a lone crater, approximately 200 meters in diameter, collecting a basinful of ice. The ice is thought to have been there for about 10,000 years.

However, there are some oddities in this scene. Why is the crater abnormally shaped? After all, craters are normally circular, not oyster shell-shaped. Why is it an isolated crater? On viewing the entire region, only one crater appears to be present for several kilometres. Does this mean the landscape is fairly young? If so, what geological processes are shaping the surface?

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) continues to return some of the most striking views from its Martian orbit. The camera can resolve objects less than a meter in diameter, picking out everything from sand dunes, eroding mesas, rolling rocks, avalanches (in action) to tiny secondary craters. These are some of the most detailed views we’ve ever had of the Red Planet’s surface. HiRISE can even keep an eye on our robotic explorers, like spotting Phoenix shortly after it landed and the tread marks of the rover Opportunity.

The polar ice cap, layered deposits and lonely crater in the centre (HiRISE/NASA)

Although this image of a rather odd-looking crater in the North Polar Region of Mars may seem a little mundane when compared with the list of HiRISE accolades, it is no less important. It is the sole impact crater for miles, hugging the edge of the polar ice cap, carved into layered deposits of rock, soil and lumps of ice. Using the crater count as a guide (i.e. the lower the count, the younger the surface is) HiRISE scientists believe the layered deposits may only be a few million years old. This may sound like a long time, but for a planet thought to be geologically inactive, the resurfacing rate seems pretty rapid. In this case, it is also believed the ice deposits in the crater are only 10,000 years old.

Geological activity destroys evidence of craters, although this region will have been hit by a similar number of meteorite impacts as crater-covered regions, rapid processes appear to be constantly reshaping the landscape. It is thought that the ice flow rate would be quite low, but on observing the strange shape of the central crater, it seems it is being warped by the motion of the surrounding deposits. The bright white ice deposits inside the crater are being protected from ablation as it is being shaded from the Sun by the crater walls. This is a common feature in polar craters.

So much for Mars being a “dead” planet, then. As seen with the dynamic avalanche processes and rolling boulders, Mars is far from being geologically inactive…

Source: HiRISE

October 20, 2008December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Phoenix Lander May Have Been Blasted by Dust Devil

Phoenix's Telltale. Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech/U of AZ

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A series of images put together to form a movie of the Mars Phoenix lander’s telltale instrument show the telltale waving wildly in the Martian wind. According to Phoenix scientists, movement in one image seemed to be “out-of-phase” with other images, possibly indicating a dust devil whirled nearby or even over the lander. Preliminary analysis of the images taken right before and after the passing of this possible dust devil indicates winds from the west at 7 meters per second. The image taken during the possible dust devil shows 11 meters per second wind from the south.

These images were taken by the lander’s Surface Stereo Imager (SSI) on the 136th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Oct. 12, 2008). Documenting the telltale’s movement helps mission scientists and engineers determine what the wind is like on Mars. The telltale was built by the University of Aarhus, Denmark, and is part of the lander’s Meteorological Station (MET), developed by the Canadian Space Agency.

Also, Phoenix’s robotic arm successfully delivered soil into oven six of the lander’s thermal and evolved-gas analyzer (TEGA) on Monday, Oct. 13, or Martian day (sol) 137 of the mission.

Six of eight ovens have been used to date.

TEGA’s tiny ovens heat the soil to as high as 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius). The lab’s or mass spectrometer analyzes the gases derived from heating the soil. Mission scientists will continue to research and analyze the soil samples in the coming months, long after Phoenix stops operating on the surface.

Phoenix is gradually getting less power as the sun drops below the horizon.

“My entire team is working very hard to make use of the power we have before it disappears,” said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, Tucson, the lead scientist for TEGA. “Every time we fill an oven, we potentially learn more about Mars’ geochemistry.”

Source: Phoenix News Site

October 14, 2008December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Martian Dust Storm Hampers Phoenix Lander’s Activities

Dust storm on Mars. Credit: MARCI Science Team

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The science team for the Phoenix Lander was forced to curtail many of their activities over the weekend because of a regional dust storm that temporarily lowered the lander’s solar power. But Phoenix weathered the storm well, and the team is back investigating the Red Planet’s northern plains. The 37,000 square-kilometer storm (nearly 23,000 miles) moved west to east, and weakened considerably by the time it reached the lander on Saturday, Oct. 11. The science team was expecting the worst, so this tamer storm put the spacecraft in a better than expected situation, said Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, the lead scientist for Phoenix’s Robotic Arm.

The lander is now back to busily collecting samples and weather data, analyzing the soil samples, and conducting other activities before fall and winter stop Phoenix cold.

“Energy is becoming an issue, so we have to carefully budget our activities,” Arvidson said.

The Phoenix team tracked the dust storm last week through images provided by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s Mars Color Imager. The imager’s team estimated that after the dust storm passed through Phoenix’s landing site on Saturday, the dust would gradually decrease this week.

This dust storm is a harbinger of more wintry and volatile weather to come. As Martian late summer turns into fall, the Phoenix team anticipates more dust storms, frost in trenches, and water-ice clouds. They look forward to collecting data and documenting this “most interesting season,” Arvidson said.

Source: Phoenix News Site