Phoenix Spacecraft Beams Home First Images Of Martian Arctic

by Andrea Thompson and Leonard David - May 26th, 2008 - space.com



The Artic Region of Mars

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has returned its first images from the surface of Mars, showing that the probe's vital solar arrays have successfully deployed and giving scientists their first up-close glimpse of the Martian arctic surface.

Phoenix landed in a northern polar region of Mars called Vastitas Borealis late Sunday, with mission controllers here at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) receiving their first signals from the spacecraft at about 7:53 p.m. EDT (2353 GMT).

This is a great occasion . . . except for the political implications. Leftists will now claim that the Martian global warming of the last 20 years was the fault of man, because of the fact that this space ship landed on Mars. Like repeated incidents where George W. Bush was blamed for things that happened before he was President, and in spite of actions he took against them, the hate-America, hate-Free-Enterprise, hate-Republican . . . Democrats, with Al Gore leading the way, will tell their followers that man is causing global warming on Mars too. Just wait. It will not take long for that to be the new mantra of the enviro-extremist crowd.

Click here for incredible video, including animation of the landing.