What is Phoenix?

-Is it a mythical bird that dies in flames and is reborn from the ashes?
-Is it a large city in US?

Well, although both two are Phoenix, I am going to write about another Phoneix.

Phoenix is a spacecraft that landed in the north polar region of Mars. (wikipedia.org)

www.fourth-millennium.net
Another detailed describtion from wikipedia:

"Phoenix is a robotic spacecraft on a space exploration mission on Mars under the Mars Scout Program. The scientists conducting the mission are using instruments aboard the Phoenix lander to search for environments suitable for microbial life on Mars, and to research the history of water there." (wikipedia.org)

Mission of Phoenix: " Mars is a cold desert planet with no liquid water on its surface. But in the Martian arctic, water ice lurks just below ground level. Discoveries made by the Mars Odyssey Orbiter in 2002 show large amounts of subsurface water ice in the northern arctic plain. The Phoenix lander targets this circumpolar region using a robotic arm to dig through the protective top soil layer to the water ice below and ultimately, to bring both soil and water ice to the lander platform for sophisticated scientific analysis. " (nasa.gov)

What is not Phoenix?
-My merely inspiration source (because I have others)

Useful Titles for Phoenix
Phoenix Mars Mission arizona.edu
Phoenix lander msnbc.msn.com
Mars Exploration nasa.gov
The Search for Water nasa.gov

We wait Phoenix back home, if it really does not embrace Mars as its hometown. :)


References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(spacecraft)
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/mission/index.html