The end of the Mars Phoenix Lander's mission is sadly nigh, but astute Twitterers have the chance to compose an epitaph, in 140 characters or less of course, to mark the explorer's passing. NASA will make one last try to power the lander up this weekend, but it's likely that within days, Mars Phoenix's life will come to an end. To mark this exciting, crowd-pleasing, Tweeting trip ... Read full entry

With winter approaching Mars' northern hemisphere, and soon to blanket the planet's Arctic region in months of darkness, the Martian Phoenix Lander will probably meet with a freezing demise, says Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It is of course possible, though unlikely, that the probe will manage to reboot itself come springtime though: Phoenix does have a built in reboot program that ... Read full entry

Scoring a spot aboard the first crewed vessel to Mars will require prospective astronauts to jump through a number of hoops, which include a two-year "experiment" to determine their suitability for such a mission. Come to think of it, jumping through hoops would probably be far easier than travelling to Mars: "The experiment would consist of placing a crew on the space station for say seven or eight months, then ... Read full entry

A stunning set of photos taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.