UA News

Peter Smith, principal investigator for the Phoenix Mars Mission, will present a talk and images taken by the Phoenix Mars Lander, which touched down in the Martian arctic on May 25, 2008, and share his thoughts about finding life outside of Earth.

What did the Phoenix Mars Lander find on Mars? Did we find evidence of water? Did Mars support life sometime in its history? At the next Science Café, Smith will reveal some of the initial scientific findings from the Phoenix mission and the prospects for finding life on the Red Planet.

The Phoenix Mars Mission was the first in NASA's Scout Program and was designed to study the history of water and habitability potential in the Martian Arctic's ice-rich soil. The mission was a collaboration of numerous agencies and academic institutions, including The University of Arizona's Science Operations Center, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver. International contributions are from the Canadian Space Agency and the Max Planck Institute in Germany.

For five months, after a spectacular landing on the Red Planet, the stationary probe – with its robotic arm, a weather station, a series of ovens, a microscope and cameras – was controlled by the UA's Science Operations Center.

And what about the next mission to Mars? Find out at the next Science Café.