PHOENIX FADES AWAY

摘要

In its final days Phoenix, the NASA lander that since May has been scraping at subsurface ice in the martian arctic, is blinking in and out of contact with Earth. As temperatures plummeted to nearly -100℃ and dust storms and clouds obscured an enfeebled sun, the spacecraft last week missed several chances to communicate with satellites passing overhead, and plunged for the first time into a bare-bones survival mode. Although engineers may wring a few more days of erratic behaviour out of the lander, Phoenix is almost certain not to survive the coming winter. Thick slabs of frozen carbon dioxide will coat the spacecraft, and its electronics will break for good. "It's like an ageing parent in the nursing home. You know it's coming," says principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona in Tucson.