Bytemarks

Monitoring the tweet flow on Sunday morning I started to see postings about the Phoenix Mars Mission live webcast on NASA.TV. They were going to show the live play by play of the landing of the Phoenix payload on the Martian surface. At the time of separation and landing most of the video action was of mission control scientists and engineers hugging and high-fiving. The thing that struck me was that the whole world seem to be watching whether it was on NASA.TV, Ustream.tv, Spacevidcast.com or on Twitter by viewers or directly from @MarsPhoenix. That’s right the Mars Phoenix spacecraft has a Twitter account and is tweeting in the first person. The Twitter traffic of the landing was enormous. You can still get a sense of the volume by doing a search on Summize.com for Phoenix+Mars. The share experience aspect to me was most rewarding. Sitting at my laptop in the middle of the Pacific I could watch live coverage, interact on Ustream.tv and see simultaneous response from other viewers on Twitter as we all counted down together. It felt like one world coming together and it felt great.
This photo just got posted to the Phoenix Mars Mission website which shows the Phoenix lander tethered to its parachute floating down to the Martian surface. If you think about it for a moment you realize how amazing this is. The shot is taken from the Orbiter many miles away, independently orbiting Mars. The Lander is on its own trajectory to the surface. To have shot this from a camera remotely controlled from Earth is quite mind boggling. I am sure we will be seeing more fantastic photos in the coming days. Thanks to Phil Plait for getting the word out on his Bad Astronomy website.