Mars Phoenix is, most likely, gone from us. I heard it from the lander itself via Twitter – its last tweet ‘Triumph’. In binary, obviously.
If you look, right now, at what people on Twitter are saying about the mission and the lander, you’ll see fond farewells and people tearing up more than a little. Examples: 1, 2, 3.
Meanwhile, here’s a terrific interview with the writer behind the tweets.
She’s very interesting when she talks about ‘getting into character’, and the interviewer’s exactly right to suggest that the way she’s approached it is highly cinematic.
Great stuff, and absolutely my favourite STEM Engagement project of the year: quick, relatively cheap, starts discussions and conversations, personal, large audience, emotional connection… the only problem is the heavily-skewed audience. But hey, Twitter geeks deserve STEM engagement too.