The Phoenix Mars lander is out of power and unlikely to send another signal, NASA said Monday.The lander operated for five months, two more than expected, but last signaled on Nov. 2. As expected, the seasonal decline in sunshine at the landing site is not providing enough light to generate the solar power that operates the robot's instruments, NASA said in a news release.
Illustration of the Phoenix lander
The project team "will be listening carefully during the next few weeks to hear if Phoenix revives and phones home," but that's not likely, because the Martian weather is getting worse, NASA said.
Phoenix was launched Aug. 4, 2007, and started studying the Mars environment after landing on May 25 this year.
It verified the presence of water in the Martian subsurface, needed to determine if the planet's arctic environment had ever been able to support life. It also found small concentrations of salts that could be nutrients for life, and calcium carbonate, which often indicates the presence of liquid water.
"Phoenix provided an important step to spur the hope that we can show Mars was once habitable and possibly supported life," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA.
The lander's cameras took more than 25,000 pictures, from vistas to near the atomic level, NASA said.
Scientists are just beginning to analyze the information Phoenix sent back to Earth.
"Phoenix has given us some surprises, and I'm confident we will be pulling more gems from this trove of data for years to come," said Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona.
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