Forumites: Excited Andrew is excited.

Phoenix, the Mars probe, has Andrew bouncing off some walls. I briefly considered pulling back the camera another few orders of magnitude to show him devouring the earth like Galactus.

Whoever thought I would be excited about ice?

TRANSMITTING AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT, 422 MILLION MILES AWAY — I’m a huge space geek. While I’ve never owned a telescope (never been far away enough from the city for it to be used in a meaningful way), I’ve always been in awe of what scientists have been able to uncover about the mysteries of our universe.

Well, if you haven’t been in the know recently, NASA has sent yet another lander to Mars. Phoenix is assigned the mission to excavate one of the polar caps of the planet to analyze the surface for habitable zones and look for evidence of past life. It’s not a rover like Spirit or Opportunity so it can’t move around, but it’s got tons of awesome equipment.

After it landed last week it’s spent the past week getting it’s equipment up and running and making sure everything is in working order. To our surprise, once it extended it’s arm (a several day process), it captured several pictures with it’s built in camera. Well guess what they found when the took a peak underneath the lander.

What does it look like? Ice! While they aren’t 100% positive, there is a very good change that this could be evidence that we are very close to an ice sheet just a few inches underneath the surface of the planet! We also don’t know if it’s CO2 or water based ice. Scientists believe that the ice was revealed when the retrorockets were fired during landing, removing a couple of inches of dust from the surface. Hopefully this will mean that there is a lot more ice around the area!

Keep updated by checking out the official NASA website and the Phoenix lander twitter. The most recent episode of Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe Podcast also has a great interview with one of the Phoenix team members at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

JASON’S EDIT: Andrew and I had a brief but excited discussion the other day about Phoenix and ongoing exploration in our solar system. Neither of us can wait to get some real data on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, which was made famous in 2010 and 2069, the sequels to Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Clarke imagined that because of excessive geothermal activity on Europa and theory that it, too, might have vast quantities of hydrogen-based ice, Europa could be suitable for life. Of course it was science fiction, but Clarke (RIP) never did anything half-assed; the science was all plausible.

I’d also like to point out something that Andrew taught me: The photo above is in black and white but many photos being beamed back from Mars are colorized using filters. The shots are amazing, and nothing at all like the red-sky Mars we see in films (QUAID! GET YOUR ASS TO MARS!). Nope, the photos seem almost sunny, which is mind-blowingly refreshing.

I have no idea how long this will last.

Our forum friends over at Geeknights know I’ve been obsessing over Bitstrips.com and posting some in-joke comics.

I have never considered making a web comic before, because — let’s face it — I’m not much of an artist and I’ve never thought I was that funny. But Andrew keeps asking me if I’m going to do a regular comic after the ones I’ve drafted up this week. Honestly, I think he wants more Andrew-centric comics. Ego!

I’ve been having tremendous fun playing with different layouts and exaggerating certain personalities. One of our forumite buddies, an old fogey who goes by the handle Hungry Joe (or Grandpa Joe, affectionately) is easy to pick on.

Rym and Scott vow to close religion threads

The guys over at Geeknights have decided to stop the merry-go-’round religious debates until the kiddies can get a grip on the old Flying Spaghetti Monster argument. I think it’s hilarious.

In other news, I’m still fiddling around with Bitstrips.com.