FOR those engaged in planetary exploration there are just two ways to land on Mars. One culminates in a victory celebration marked by spontaneous outpourings of joy and relief. The other ends like a funeral and is a hard, hard thing to experience.
Happily for the scientists and engineers behind the Phoenix mission, their spacecraft did it the first way. That means all the money, resources and human capital invested in the project have produced a precious scientific opportunity. If Phoenix continues to perform as well as it has so far, researchers will have months to become familiar with the Martian arctic desert and search for signs of habitability among its curious polygons (see "Phoenix Mars lander's first images reveal a quilted surface").
Phoenix's safe arrival is a tremendous achievement in a risky business. When tallied up with all previous attempts to set down on the Red Planet, the ...
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