NASA photos show Phoenix Mars lander’s journey
The harsh Martian winter has deprived the Phoenix Mars Lander of the sunlight it needs to power its instruments, and the device has stopped communicating after more than five months of work on the Red Planet. A series of NASA photos shows the lander’s journey to and view from Mars.
The Phoenix Mars lander’s robotic, trench-digging arm and solar panel, with the bleak Martian landscape in the foreground. (Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Calech/University of Arizona)
Above is a compilation of images showing Phoenix’s workspace after 90 Martian days, which are called “Sols.” The shadow left of center is the Surface Stereo Imager (SSI), the two-lens camera with a resolution of 1024×1024 pixels that snapped all photos during the mission. (Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Calech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University)
The two adjacent images above show ice in a trench named “Dodo-Goldilocks.” That’s precisely the name for a small observation trench that we would have thought of, too. (Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Calech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University)
Above, the Phoenix Mars lander is launched into space.
Above, the two-lensed Surface Stereo Imager (SSI) developed by a team led by scientist Christopher Shinohara, who helped design cameras used in the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1998. For this mission, the SSI was elevated to two meters above the ground and was designed as closely as possible to mimic the focus and resolution of human eyesight (Photo credit: SSI Team/University of Arizona).
Check out the University of Arizona’s page on the SSI to learn more about the camera.
Leave a comment!