NASA’s Phoenix probe successfully landed on Mars late on Sunday night after its 171 million mile (275 million kilometers) journey. The lander’s mission, which could prove key to the future of snow sports, is to look for and analyse frozen water to see if it can support life.

“It's the most precise calculation yet for the thickness of the red planet's ice.” Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California told National Geographic. Using an ice-penetrating radar to map the south pole's underlying terrain, the scientists calculated that the ice is up to 2.2 miles (3,500 meters) thick in places. The radar, from the Mars Express orbiter also revealed a surprising purity of the ice.

Once Phoenix is fully operational it will begin its 90-day mission to dig deep into the Martian permafrost and ice samples, in part to determine whether Mars ever had the right conditions to support life, as theorized in the Arnie Schwarzenegger documentary, Total Recall.

Mars boasts the highest mountains so far found in the solar system, the highest Olympus Mons, rising s 27 kilometers ( 16.7 miles or 88,580 ft), or three times the elevation of Mount Everest, thus opening up the possibility of the biggest skiable vertical this side of Alpha Centauri. The mountain features six overlapping pit craters on its outer edge, known locally as the ‘back bowls’.

As yet it is not known when the first skiers are likely to land on Mars, but if the latest climate change projections from Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos, which predict doom for ski areas in the Alps by 2070, are correct, it seems more than likely we’ll be enjoying a red run on the red planet by the end of the century.

NASA are also pleased with the success of the Phoenix landing and believe it could show the way towards that likelihood,
"The way we're going to land humans on Mars is with propulsion systems and landing legs," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

“Years ago, Mars researchers could only speculate about water based on ancient river channels and canyons. But now it's possible to look for it directly.” Ray Arvidson, a professor at Washington University and a member of the NASA Mars team told National Geographic. "The more we look, the more water we're seeing. It's really exciting."

---