Word: martianize
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...past decade has been something of a Martian era of space exploration. Since 1996, the U.S. alone has launched no fewer than nine spacecraft Marsward, and seven have arrived in one piece--an extraordinary success rate for a planet that historically had been a bit of a graveyard of failed missions. Currently, six ships--five American and one European--are at work on Mars, and a handful of others sleep peacefully on the surface or orbit silently above, their missions completed and their systems exhausted. While a lot of the work the spacecraft do is the quiet business of spelunking...
...Sept. 29, NASA announced that a laser instrument aboard the Phoenix lander, which touched down north of Mars' arctic circle last May, had spotted snow falling through the planet's frigid sky. Martian snowfall isn't like earthly snowfall; this descended from some 2.4 miles (4 km) up and appeared to vaporize before it reached the surface. Still, the picture that Phoenix is painting is of a meteorologically dynamic world, one not only with occasional flurries but also with clouds and fog forming at night in addition to the famed Martian winds...
...Phoenix's case, another tale is just beginning. The ship will soon start to sample the frozen soil of the Martian pole, where a possible abundance of ice indicates a possible abundance of water and could--in theory--mean a little bit of life. If such a discovery is made, that news too will reach us 15 min. later--though odds are, no one will gripe about the wait...
...control room during the final moments of the descent is like riding the bench during a baseball no-hitter: no one wants to jinx the outcome, so no one says a word. "Seven minutes of terror" is how Smith described the communications blackout as the spacecraft passed through the Martian atmosphere. One flight technician fidgeted with his pen. A few others rocked back and forth in their chairs, tension lines webbing their faces. Then came a simple radio burst, indicating Phoenix had reached its destination. Said Michael Wright, who helped design Phoenix's protective heat shield: "Once I heard that...
...spacecraft now has about three months to study the Martian north pole before -200 F winter temperatures hit the region and threaten to freeze the instruments. But Phoenix is designed with a longer, six-to-eight-month stay in mind, so hopes are high that the probe will not only find frozen water but will also serve as a precursor to later missions seeking evidence of microscopic organic life. Which means that NASA, like Frosty, will probably be back again someday...