Obit

Mars Phoenix Lander Dies

Mission goes to big red planet in the sky.

Nasa’s popular Mars Phoenix Lander mission has come to an end. The lander, beloved by many who followed it on its Twitter feed, is frozen on Mars’s arctic plane after the energy for its internal heaters ran out. But it had a good run. It was originally built to last just 90 days but ended up continuing on for an extra two months. The 25,000 photographs and dozens of tests performed by the lander will take months to analyze, but already the mission is seen as a success. The lander also had the distinction of being the first spacecraft to “taste” Martian water. Around 4:30 Monday, the Mars Phoenix lander twittered its last words: “01010100 01110010 01101001 01110101 01101101 01110000 01101000<3” (translation: “Triumph.”)