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Mars Phoenix lander saves itself with some quick thinking
The Phoenix lander has already proven its mettle by finding ice on Mars, and now it's gone and shown off its quick-thinking skills by shutting down its robotic arm after receiving a command that could have permanently damaged it. The lander apparently did it's best to find a workaround first, however, but ultimately determined that any further movement would have bent its wrist out of shape. That left NASA engineers scrambling yesterday to come up with some new instructions to send to the lander, and they're now simply waiting to see if they meet with the robot's approval.[Via Slashdot]
Mars Phoenix lander discovers ice on Mars
It's only fitting that the glorious news of water ice on Mars was broke over Twitter this evening, via the Mars Phoenix lander's own first-person ramblings. Apparently Mars Phoenix was keeping an eye on some white patches it uncovered the other day, only to discover they'd disappeared today. According to the scientist folk over at NASA, that means those white patches must've been ice, which dissipated once uncovered. Now Mars Phoenix still has the considerable task of uncovering more ice and sampling it, but the mission is ahead of schedule and NASA has already identified a hard patch of ground it wants to dig into. Congrats to Mars Phoenix and all the fine folks at NASA, now be sure to watch out for the cave-dwelling little green men![Via Wired Science]
