Phoenix Rising

With the waning gibbous moon looking down, the Phoenix mission to Mars took flight on a fiery tail of flame in the pre-dawn skies of Cape Canaveral this morning, heading to a rendezvous with the Red Planet in May of 2008.

Phoenix will  land near the North Pole of Mars, and dig into the icy soil looking for the elements necessary to give and sustain life, and look to see if life once existed on our solar system neighbor.

So as the months go by, and Mars becomes more prominent in the skies of Earth, with it’s bexst views this winter (not this month), we can watch Mars as it gets ready for yet another visitor to it’s dusty, rocky surface.

Keep up-to-date with the mission via the Phoenix websites at NASA and the University of Arizona, where the mission is being led from.