7 is lucky number for Phoenix Mars Lander

William Atkins
Thursday, 12 June 2008 18:50

Science - Space

After six failures, the NASA Phoenix Mars Lander has finally succeeded in getting dirt into its “not-so-easy” bake oven. Phoenix scientists dance the (Martian) night away!

In six past attempts, scientists tried to get soil scooped up from the “Baby Bear” trench on the Martian ground (on Friday, June 6th) into the number four oven (one of eight tiny TEGA ovens) on the Lander.

On the seventh try, Wednesday, June 11, 2008, they succeeded.

Apparently, after the successful procedure was verified by the scientists, they joined the Lander in “shaking their booties.”

The scientists made several earlier attempts (on June 6, 8, and 9) to vibrate the oven with an improvised technique. They started up a drill inside the scoop, which caused the instrument to shake enough to cause some of the finer particles to finally break loose and fall into the oven.

Needless-to-say the scientists involved with the Martian mission were ecstatic. In fact, several of them danced to the 1976 disco tune “(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty” by KC and the Sunshine Band.

The context of the tune’s title is in reference to having to vibrate (or shake) the spacecraft to get some fine pieces of the clumpy soil to fall through the fine-mesh screen and into the oven.

As a side note, most of the song consists of references to shaking. For instance, some of the lyrics are:

“Oh, shake, shake, shake - shake, shake, shake Shake your booty, shake your booty. Oh, shake, shake, shake - shake, shake, shake Shake your booty, shake your booty, wow wow, yeah!” [Sing365.com]

Ok, turn the page for more information on these disco-dancing scientists.