Mars looking and feeling better than what we have been told by NASA?

It seems once more that we have been fooled by NASA. Sky, ground and temperate might be way off what NASA gave us. The following video is a great explaination of this. Blue/Whitish sky, desert ground…

NASA Spacecraft Confirms Martian Water, Mission Extended

NASA is slow. We’ve seen that it had ice already in the past, I don’t understand what is the big deal about water now. It feels like NASA is 50 years behind what the actual discoveries and technology is at…
Anyway, here is the article:

TUCSON, Ariz. — Laboratory tests aboard NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander’s robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.

“We have water,” said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. “We’ve seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted.”

With enticing results so far and the spacecraft in good shape, NASA also announced operational funding for the mission will extend through Sept. 30. The original prime mission of three months ends in late August. The mission extension adds five weeks to the 90 days of the prime mission.

“Phoenix is healthy and the projections for solar power look good, so we want to take full advantage of having this resource in one of the most interesting locations on Mars,” said Michael Meyer, chief scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The soil sample came from a trench approximately 2 inches deep. When the robotic arm first reached that depth, it hit a hard layer of frozen soil. Two attempts to deliver samples of icy soil on days when fresh material was exposed were foiled when the samples became stuck inside the scoop. Most of the material in Wednesday’s sample had been exposed to the air for two days, letting some of the water in the sample vaporize away and making the soil easier to handle.

“Mars is giving us some surprises,” said Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona. “We’re excited because surprises are where discoveries come from. One surprise is how the soil is behaving. The ice-rich layers stick to the scoop when poised in the sun above the deck, different from what we expected from all the Mars simulation testing we’ve done. That has presented challenges for delivering samples, but we’re finding ways to work with it and we’re gathering lots of information to help us understand this soil.”

Since landing on May 25, Phoenix has been studying soil with a chemistry lab, TEGA, a microscope, a conductivity probe and cameras. Besides confirming the 2002 finding from orbit of water ice near the surface and deciphering the newly observed stickiness, the science team is trying to determine whether the water ice ever thaws enough to be available for biology and if carbon-containing chemicals and other raw materials for life are present.

The mission is examining the sky as well as the ground. A Canadian instrument is using a laser beam to study dust and clouds overhead.

“It’s a 30-watt light bulb giving us a laser show on Mars,” said Victoria Hipkin of the Canadian Space Agency.

A full-circle, color panorama of Phoenix’s surroundings also has been completed by the spacecraft.

“The details and patterns we see in the ground show an ice-dominated terrain as far as the eye can see,” said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, lead scientist for Phoenix’s Surface Stereo Imager camera. “They help us plan measurements we’re making within reach of the robotic arm and interpret those measurements on a wider scale.”

The Phoenix mission is led by Smith at the University of Arizona with project management at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and development partnership at Lockheed Martin in Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark; the Max Planck Institute in Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

For more about Phoenix, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix

Media contacts: Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Sara Hammond 520-626-1974
University of Arizona, Tucson
shammond@lpl.arizona.edu

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

(Source: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-20080731.html)

Mars Phoenix Tweets: "We Have ICE!"

I hope this satisfies them. Now, can we get our budget back so we can solve the issues here, before we create more issues somewhere else?

There is water ice on Mars within reach of the Mars Phoenix Lander, NASA scientists announced Thursday.

Photographic evidence settles the debate over the nature of the white material seen in photographs sent back by the craft. As seen in lower left of this image, chunks of the ice sublimed (changed directly from solid to gas) over the course of four days, after the lander’s digging exposed them.
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(Full Article: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/mars-phoenix-tw.html)

Unusual Object Photographed by the Phoenix Lander

Very neat, casting shadow too! Looks like one of th geyser Mr. Joseph P. Skipper found in other pictures. He’s got a great website found at www.MarsAnomalyResearch.com.

The Pope’s chief astronomer says that life on Mars cannot be ruled out

Writing in the Vatican newspaper, the astronomer, Father Gabriel Funes, said intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space.

Father Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory near Rome, is a respected scientist who collaborates with universities around the world.

The search for forms of extraterrestrial life, he says, does not contradict belief in God.

The official Vatican newspaper headlines his article ‘Aliens Are My Brother’.

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(Full Article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7399661.stm)

The Pope’s chief astronomer says that life on Mars cannot be ruled out

Writing in the Vatican newspaper, the astronomer, Father Gabriel Funes, said intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space.

Father Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory near Rome, is a respected scientist who collaborates with universities around the world.

The search for forms of extraterrestrial life, he says, does not contradict belief in God.

The official Vatican newspaper headlines his article ‘Aliens Are My Brother’.

…

(Full Article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7399661.stm)

Phoenix Mars Rover

What happened to Polar Lander, the last Mars rover that NASA tried to land in the Martian polar region, where it hopes that the Phoenix rover will touch down on May 25? The mysterious fate of the lander that simply disappeared moments before reaching Mars has been the subject of both scientific and UFO-logy debates. Was it shot down by angry Martians dwelling at the pole? Did it encounter some strange magnetic phenomenon that disabled it? Or did it just malfunction? We may soon find out.

Phoenix, an even more badass version of the current Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, will hit the Martian north pole. (Sadly, it can’t look for the dead Polar Lander, because that rover was headed for the South Pole.) If all goes as planned, it will immediately dig into the icy tundra and take samples to see what the deal is with all that ice. Could it be turned into potable water for future colonists?

To make sure nothing goes wrong with the landing — or at least to see what the hell happened if it does — three Earth-controlled satellites orbiting Mars will be watching Phoenix’s descent into the ice. According to Discovery News:

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(Full Article: http://io9.com)

Shatner Claims To Know About Life On Mars…Really

Another actor dislosing info! Great!

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Shat believes in ET, claims to know about life on Mars
The seventh question in the chat (at time mark 5:27) was “Do you believe in Extra-terrestrial life?” Shatner replied in the affirmative saying “of course, it is beyond a certainty that there is life out there.” Shat then went on to say (in complete seriousness) that he had insider info on Martians:

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(Full Article + Video: http://trekmovie.com)