We’re here, at spacEurope, still on the aftermath of yesterday’s live Q’n’A with Peter Smith, where we have seen our visitors questions answered by the mission’s Principal Investigator and which I believe it turned out to be a very pleasant and enriching hour, yes I know…it should have been two or three but the PI has some considerable tonnes of work in his hands to assure that everything will be ready for May 25.Today we keep focused on Phoenix but from a different perspective…
40 days to Mars! Already!
Looks like it was yesterday that we were here celebrating the 50 days missing!
40 Days to Mars and 33 days for you to send your creations to the spacEurope/Phoenix Mission Outreach Through the Eyes of the Phoenix Competition! Don’t miss the opportunity to get the kids and yourself participating in a special way on a mission about to change our knowledge about Mars and get yourself a really cool souvenir from the Mission!
spacEurope’s crew is really excited about the days to come and as one of our resident columnists wasn’t able to be present on yesterday’s party, nothing like posting some words from him as a way of saying:
Nick…we don’t forget you!
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Polarizing Thoughts
In 40 Earth days, Phoenix will land in the far north of Mars and show us a mysterious region on a planet that is itself the very incarnation of mystery. What is it, exactly, about the polar regions of planets that seems to captivate us and remain romantic, no matter how many times we've visited these places on our own world?
Polar areas are almost inevitably much different climactically from the other areas of a world, even if a planet's "climate" consists only of the amount of solar heating over a given period in hard vacuum. There also seems to be some sort of prediliction for geophysical differences as well. The North Pole of Mercury may have the volatile residues of long-dead comets, a potential bonanza for future explorers and colonists. Tantalizing hints of similar deposits near the South Pole of the Moon are under serious investigation, and if confirmed may be a primary motivation for us to finally establish our first true foothold beyond Earth. The frigid organic lakes of Titan are found only near its poles, and the geysers of Enceladus vent silently into space from its south pole.
The poles are different even on worlds radically dissimilar to the solid bodies we prefer to inhabit. Saturn features an enormous hexagonal circulation feature -a geometrical standing wave of hydrogen and helium, primarily- in its north, and a perpetual vortex bigger than a thousand hurricanes large enough to swallow all we are and ever have been in the south. The unique nature of polar regions extends far beyond planets, our precious grains of sand in a Universe large beyond comprehension. There is mounting evidence that so-called "hypernovae" produce gamma-ray bursts -the most energetic events known- and they are radiation beams emitted along the spin and/or magnetic rotational axes of exploding stars. Even more significant, active galaxies with tremendous black holes at their core often emit jets of radiation along their spin axes, via mechanisms still to be fully explained. Poles are mysterious, magical, and active locales. Suffice to say that the poles of almost any large rotating body tend to be unique places.
Is this why we seek to know them? On Earth, the oceans of the polar regions are cold, and therefore can retain more dissolved oxygen then the temperate regions; that's why animals such as the giant Pacific octopus or the king crab are found here and nowhere else, as well as abundant large fish of many species. We go there on Earth because experience and exploration has shown that there are riches to be found. It's only natural that we'll do the same on other worlds. Phoenix may land on a polar seabed, possibly the altered remnant of an ocean that might well have been blooming with nascent organisms long before life was even possible on our own world. Underneath, there is ice; is it another artifact of a long-dead sea, or of more recent vintage? Moreover, if there ever was (or is) any Martian life, is it as tenacious as its terrestrial cousins? Life on Earth just doesn't give up. If there's even the narrowest ecological niche available for survival, rest assured that some organism will exploit it. It is not unreasonable to expect the same tenacity born of the fundamental drives of evolution from extraterrestrial life.
On Mars, on every place, the poles are unusual locales for many reasons. As it happens, the extreme latitudes of Mars may just be the most habitable regions of the planet, and with luck we may see just how special they are with our own eyes via a marvelous construction of our ingenuity and imagination in less than two months.
Nobody really knows what we'll see. That's why we're going. That's why we've always gone.
Nicholas Previsich
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