Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University
Ice Cold Sunrise On MarsAugust 26, 2008 --- From the location of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, above the Martian arctic circle, the sun does not set during the peak of the Martian summer. This period of maximum solar energy is past -- on Sol 86, the 86th Martian day after the Phoenix landing, the sun fully set behind a slight rise to the north for about half an hour. This red-filter image taken by the lander's Surface Stereo Imager, shows the sun rising on the morning of sol 90, Aug. 25, 2008, the last day of the Phoenix nominal mission. The image was taken at 51 minutes past midnight local solar time during the slow sunrise that followed a 75 minute "night." The skylight in the image is light scattered off atmospheric dust particles and ice crystals. The setting sun does not mean the end of the mission. In late July, the Phoenix Mission was extended through September, rather than the 90-sol duration originally planned as the prime mission. Click Here for images associated with this press release.  |
THE MISSIONThe University of Arizona is honored to be the first public university to lead a mission to Mars. The Phoenix Mars Mission, scheduled to land May 25, 2008, is the first in NASA's "Scout Program." Scouts are designed to be highly innovative and relatively low-cost complements to major missions being planned as part of the agency's Mars Exploration Program. Learn More |
The Phoenix Mission is led by Principal Investigator Peter H. Smith of The University of Arizona, supported by a science team of CO-Is, with project management at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and development partnership with Lockheed Martin Space Systems. International contributions are provided by the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus Denmark; the Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. Additional information on Phoenix is online at here and here. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Additional information on NASA's Mars program is online at here.
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In remembrance of Diane Michelangeli
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