Phoenix has landed!

We are so excited here in Tucson. Yesterday the Phoenix Mars lander touched down on Mars and we were all on campus to join in the celebrations. Rob and I and Dana and Matt walked over to the University Mall and tried to find space in front of one of the many screens set up that were broadcasting NASA TV.

We found a spot in the Sonett Space Sciences building. They had these countdown clocks hung up everywhere so we could keep track of Phoenix's progress.
It was very exciting. We were standing next to a guy who was part of the team that designed this: the HiRise camera.
It stands for The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and it's how Phoenix is going to send back all those great images. The guy wasn't worried at all that Phoenix would be alright. He said that the "7 minutes of terror" were really just slight anxiety. He said everything was going to run perfectly, and he was right. As the mission counted down "1600 meters, 1400 meters, 1100 meters" all the way down to "30 meters, 27 meters, 10 meters" the room was completely silent, crossing our fingers that the lander would slow down enough for a smooth landing. We held our breath as the announcer said "Phoenix has landed! Phoenix landed!" Then there were claps, screams, hugs, and handshakes all around. It was funny, the screen outside must have been a little delayed, because a full minute after we were done cheering, we heard the crowd outside erupt into applause.
Afterward, Space Science graduate students made ice cream for everybody out of liquid nitrogen. Very cool.

In the evening, we went back to Flandrau Science Center to see the Planetarium show on Mars. I love love love Planetariums. After that, we went up to the public telescope to see a very nice view of Saturn. It was so crisp, we could see the shadow of Saturn across the rings, and we could see the shadow of the rings across the surface of the planet. We also could see at least 3 of its moons. So cool. It was a very long day, but to finish it off on a funny note, we saw Rob on the 10pm news! He was interviewed about his experience watching the landing. He looked very cute and very smart.
Congratulations Phoenix and congratulations, University of Arizona. Go Wildcats. Well done.