Sun editorial:

The buzz over Mars

The flight of the Phoenix stirs the imagination in its search for signs of life

Friday, May 30, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.

From some angles, NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander looks more like a giant mosquito than a technological wonder.

And it seemed as fickle as a giant insect Tuesday when a “transient event” temporarily knocked out radio transmissions between the Phoenix and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which relays communications between Phoenix and NASA officials on Earth.

The malfunction has been corrected and communications have been restored so that scientists can resume preparing Phoenix for its next task: digging up samples of frozen Martian soil.

Phoenix landed on the red planet Sunday, completing a nine-month journey that covered 422 million miles — a staggering distance to contemplate, even in terms of space travel. It is situated on Mars’ northern polar ice cap, a location never before visited by an Earth probe and a region scientists believe lends the best chance for finding frozen water within Phoenix’s reach.

Phoenix’s mission is to collect data that will allow scientists to determine whether the organic compounds and microbial building blocks of life exist in the planet’s frozen depths.

Photos of the surface transmitted to Earth this week show “a flat barren landscape that is kind of lumpy,” Peter Smith, the mission’s principal investigator, told The New York Times. The lumps are actually the sides of furrows that are caused by the repeated expansion and contraction of an underground layer of ice — just what researchers are looking for.

Phoenix’s robotic arm is being positioned and prepared for the digging and the collection of samples that are expected to start next week. Phoenix also is collecting data so that scientists can study the polar region’s past and present climate trends.

While life on Mars has long been the subject of science fiction, the question of whether the actual foundations of life exist there could soon have a very real answer.

It is the kind of adventure that has long driven America’s scientific explorers. At a time when our nation’s commitment to science has fallen under deserved criticism, Phoenix offers an example of what America’s ingenuity, persistence and scientific vigor can accomplish.