THE MARS PHOENIX LANDER IS GONE

My life with the Mars Phoenix Lander started with a green laser beam in the sky.

It was early fall in Halifax in 2006 when I looked up in the sky one night and saw a green beam shooting up into the night sky. I'd never seen anything like this before, so I asked the locals what it was, but no one could give me a straight answer. I was told it was either a communication test for extraterrestrials, part of an advertising campaign for Moosehead Lager or a weapons test by the American military to shoot down satellites.

Instead of slacking off and believing the ridiculous, I called the Dalhousie Department of Science and found out the green beam was part of a LIDAR experiment run by a group of astronomers/climatologists.

What's a LIDAR? It's kind of like sonar - you shoot a beam of light into the sky. When the light hits water vapour, dust, animals, the light bounces back to the emitter, telling you the composition of the atmosphere. By studying how the light reflects, and how much of it bounces back, you can tell what is going on in the sky. This let's you know how much water vapour is in the sky, what the temperature is, density of pollutants and even air movement. All this by using a big powerful laser, a team of at least four people, and a lot of computing power.

So, being a science geek, that was enough for me to be interested. But I wasn't expecting what I found out next: that the green beam was the bigger brother of a breadloaf-sized piece of kit that was going to be launched to Mars! And it was Canadian tech!

The next day I took a video camera, a beautiful camera-girl, and every ounce of science geekery to speak with Dr. Tom Duck of the Atmospheric-Optic Laboratory. Check out the video to find out more. Generally, what I found was that the Mars Phoenix Lander would let us know if there is water in the atmosphere of Mars, and give us an idea where the water in Mars oceans went.



I did the video piece a year before the launch. And then I watched the launch live on NASA TV. And then I live blogged the landing.

I watched the Mars lander almost everyday. I cheered the landing. I yelled out when the robotic arm dug up ice. And when the LIDAR detected snow I was shocked. In that instant I realized that Mars was so much more interesting than even I had thought before. With water ice falling from the sky Mars became so much more like Earth. And this means that not only does the geology of Mars make more sense, but life on Mars suddenly looks a lot more likely.

When a beam of light shot up from the Phoenix, our perception of the universe changed.

And now the Phoenix has shut down, unable to keep itself warm against the cold Martian winter.

The Mars Phoenix lander has set the standard for future projects, changed the nature of how we view Mars and proven again that Canadian tech is as as good NASA and the ESA.

But to me, the Phoenix was my first story and made me realize that I could become a science journalist.

Phoenix, you will be missed.










Wired - Mars Phoenix lander runs out of juice

Official- Mars Phoenix Lander