Phoenix landed on Mars
I was at Balticon this weekend and while I knew Phoenix was going to land on Mars and that it had been successful, I didn’t get to read the articles or watch video until today. This YouTube video is from the control room intercut with the lander animation.
The animation only videos are great but there is nothing like seeing and hearing the excitement of the people who’ve working on this project for so long as their baby actually does what it was set up to do — and doing it well. I know it always bring a tear to my eye and chokes me up a bit.You can see the animation video on Astronomy Picture of the Day, which is a wonderful site for astronomy photography. There were news articles in just about all the major papers and news sites. I enjoyed this article with photos from the lander that was posted to the Planetary Society website.
It’s still incredible to me that we can sit at home and see photos of another planet. Mars has always held a special place in my heart probably because of all the science fiction I read as a child. I’m glad that our space program isn’t completely defunct but I wish it could get the funding it needs to truly explore our solar system. There is just so much more to learn and every time we learn about what’s out there it adds to the knowledge of our own planet and how it works.