NASA successful landing on Mars should draw more attention to the Red Planet and it’s a good time to grab some decent Mars related domains if you haven’t yet..

Despite the success of NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity missions, directors remained anxious Sunday over the first-ever landing of a probe near Mars’ north pole to find signs of life.

“I do not feel confident. But in my heart I’m an optimist, and I think this is going to be a very successful mission,” said principal investigator Peter Smith, an optical scientist with the University of Arizona. “The thrill of victory is so much more exciting than the agony of defeat.”  Forex brokers

The Mars Phoenix Lander was wrapping up its 296-day, 422 million-mile journey Sunday, with about a 50-50 chance of a successful touchdown on the arctic plains of the Red Planet, NASA officials said.

“There’s nothing else to do but watch,” said Phoenix project manager Barry Goldstein of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California.

Goldstein’s teams decided to waive an opportunity to tweak the Phoenix flight path, saying that the spacecraft was on the right track.

The mission of the Phoenix is to analyze the soils and permafrost of Mars’ arctic tundra for signs of life, either past or present.

But first, everyone on the team has to get the lander on the ground — an event dubbed “seven minutes of terror” by the Mars exploration community.

Seven minutes is all it takes for a spacecraft traveling nearly 13,000 mph to hit the Martian atmosphere, slam on the brakes and reach the ground. During that time, onboard computers will be working at a manic pace as the spacecraft deploys its parachute, jettisons its heat shield, extends its three legs, releases the parachute and finally fires its thrusters to bring it down for a soft landing.