did the mason's come from mars?

I dunno. Looks a lot like my mate's driveway in Croydon. I reckon it's a fake and no-ones going to find out because no-ones going to Croydon.

That picture looks like an old woman's belly button (as one would imagine, of course).

Paris, 'cos she wishes someone would land on her these days.

Couldn't they have it drop something like a coke can or pack of Marlboro lights, I have no sense of the scale.

I have this image of the robot dumping all the trash from the trip before starting work.

Also, it's obviously fake the shadows are wrong, no stars, footprint in bottom right corner, prop numbers stenciled onto rocks, no dust for first picture after landing,....

AmanFromMars' verandah!

How could you suggest such a thing. Don't you trust and love our beloved leaders? We have special places for trouble makers you know.

Waking up to find some aliens have dumped a huge metal object and stared to dig a trench right bang in the middle of the Martina equivalent Japanese rock garden.How would you feel if next door decided to rip up your flower bed you sure as hell would want to kick his ass so lets to be to shocked when an invasion fleet decided to come and blow us up for dumping our crap on them.

Mine is the one with the Acme rocket in the pocket - If it was good enough for Marvin and the Coyote it might just save earth.

no shark, bridge or helicopter.

Hi..

Take a look, extreme left about 1/2 way down. Is it just me or does this look a bit like a seashell on its side?

I asked SWMBO and she agrees with me on this one.

-A

7.7 feet? Come off it, you metrically impared individual. All NASA work is done in meters, and a 7.7ft robotic arm is actually a 2.502 meter appendage. Let's call it 2.5 meters. So there. Please update your article to use proper measurements. Oh, and avoid your luddite imperial system in future. kthxbai.

Paris, because only a dumb blonde would make such a silly mistake.

-n

The country that retained feet, miles, etc. is the one that has had the most successful space program.

Mines the one 157 millimetres to the left.

"7.7 feet? Come off it, you metrically impared individual." .... By nick hilliard Posted Monday 26th May 2008 11:43 GMT

nick,

There is probably some Magic Significance in 7.7.... for as you rightly point out, it could quite easily have been something else.

"Paris, because only a dumb blonde would make such a silly mistake." Hmmm, does that make them easily lead?

@ Torben:

On planets other than Earth, all longitudes are normally given as longitudes east. It's simpler. Allegedly.

"...lying at at 68° north, 234° east on a flat valley ..."

I hope that it is in fact standing :)

Say what you want but I see two martians in the photo. There are about the size of cockrocaches. Right side. About half way down. In about a quarter.

Just had to go look again didn't you?

Mine is the one with the eight ball on the back.

Expecting to find water so soon already? No wonder it's soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo exciting running away from Earth. I can barely contain myself.

Paris - not a scupper either.

Me too, and for just the same reason, that animation reminded me of the old "flying bedstead" design from the '50s, and I thought it would be just as unstable. I thought "when that flat thing smashing through the atmosphere at high speed starts to fire rockets, it's going to skip and jump like a bucking bronco and probably end up flipping upside-down".

Guess it goes to show we've learnt a lot about real-time computer control of dynamically instable flight systems since then. Maybe NASA kind-of exaggerated the bounciness factor in that animation a bit, to make it look more exciting and dangerous than it actually was?

Either way, I'm well impressed. We're on another planet! Go, Team Earthbound-Biped-Primates!

Those are balls!

@Joe Cooper

"It took about 500 billion to put 12 geologists on the moon."

Err, only one of them was a geologist, and even then what they really needed was a Selenologist (but they hadn't been invented back then).

"Try sending 200,000 people to Mars and supporting them for five years while fighting Martians and see how the cost goes up."

So, the troops would be armed with some sort of anti-bacterial spray?

And the picture of the Phoenix Lander, landing is even cleverer, still.

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/230206main_9227-PHX_Lander.jpg

Since the robotic arm is Canada's contribution to the effort (as is the case with the Shuttle programme), you can be sure that it was engineered in proper units.

Paris, because she was not fooled by this length boast.

Not terribly surprising: it's pretty much how the Viking landers did it thirty years ago, the only real difference being that Phoenix has gone straight in for a landing rather than doing some orbital sightseeing first.

Naturally-formed polygons aren't that unusual. A foam of soap bubbles in your sink, for example. Many are polyhedra, with flat sides, straight edges, and sharp corners.

Re 234º east: on Earth, yes. But there's less risk of confusion or error if you always measure eastward from an (arbitrary) prime meridian.

Take a look, extreme left about 1/2 way down. Is it just me or does this look a bit like a seashell on its side?

I asked SWMBO and she agrees with me on this one.

Well, that settles it then.

One of their Liars Club freaks with a new books to sell is already planned for the show to tell all the late night morons that the "geometric" shape in the picture is an ancient bit of Martian road or canal!

Isn't the reason for the sea shell simply that the picture, taken by a camera with a red filter on its lens, is just of the "beach" at Weston-Super-Mare when the tide is out?

I guess you should know about this. Can't you ring up some relatives back home and get the skinny?

"The country that retained feet, miles, etc. is the one that has had the most successful space program."

Because when NASA use imperial measurements thing go so well......

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/news/mco991110.html

There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom!

Actually in the correct measurement the robotic arm is 11.6 red squirrels.

Measured of course from the nose, to the end of the tail (equivalent to 10.8 of the slightly larger grey squirrel)

""The country that retained feet, miles, etc. is the one that has had the most successful space program."

Because when NASA use imperial measurements thing go so well......

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/news/mco991110.html" .... By Matt Martin Posted Tuesday 27th May 2008 01:39 GMT

Matt,

One trusts in Global Operating Devices, that for any possible Chance and all possible Chances of Sustainable Imperial Success in Alien Space Missions, that ITs Leadership Team members are Naturally Up for the Task and not Junked out on the Blue Pill of Distressed Chemical and MetaDataMining Dependency...... for if they have no Viable IP Growth Strategy for Future Source/Deep Select Space Flight Population for AIReal Simulations, the Phoenix will fade to Black and Default to Red Control. Indeed, and I would not want to be too alarmist about the matter, it may very well be so already Proxy Defaulted/Kernel Embedded and just awaits Third Party HyperRadioProActivity to Energise Limitless Imaginative Source Potential.

When one considers the earlier crash/failure report, one may see a disturbingly familiar picture to the one painted in this short extract from its findings ...."The failure board's first report identifies eight contributing factors that led directly or indirectly to the loss of the spacecraft. These contributing causes include inadequate consideration of the entire mission and its post-launch operation as a total system, inconsistent communications and training within the project, and lack of complete end-to-end verification of navigation software and related computer models. "

But if they have a handle on How to Steer Imagination in the Right Direction and towards the Light of Deeper Understandings, then they will have no Problems.

And having landed on Mars and finding IT Convivial ...... whatever Next to do? Create a New World Environment on Earth as AI ControlLED Virgin Space Simulator Program for Budding Colonists? Do that too well and you will Create Red Hot Zones/Martian Times on Earth and a Simple Virtual TelePortation Facility in Faculty. ...... although that may be more of a Fit for House of the Rising Sun Eastern Space Science Technologies/Methodologies to showcase their Microprocessor/SemiConductor XXXXPerTease.

Tread carefully on Foreign Soils, for Aliens have no Default Rights and are only Welcome Guests when bearing no Ills and Providing New Technology.

NASA finds Bible on Mars!!

http://www.weeklyworldinquisitor.com/bible_on_mars.html