Phoenix DVD
Attached to the deck of the lander (next to the US flag) is the "Phoenix DVD", compiled by the Planetary Society. The disc contains Visions of Mars, a multimedia collection of literature and art about the Red Planet. Works include the text of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds (and the radio broadcast by Orson Welles), Percival Lowell's Mars as the Abode of Life with a map of his proposed canals, Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, and Kim Stanley Robinson's Green Mars. There are also messages directly addressed to future Martian visitors or settlers from, among others, Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke. In 2006, The Planetary Society collected a quarter million names submitted through the Internet and placed them on the disc, which claims, on the front, to be "the first library on Mars." This Phoenix DVD is similar to the Voyager Golden Record that was sent on the Voyager 1 & 2 missions.
The Phoenix DVD is made of a special silica glass designed to withstand the Martian environment, lasting for hundreds (if not thousands) of years on the surface while it awaits discoverers.
The text just below the center of the disk reads:
| “ | This archive, provided to the NASA Phoenix mission by The Planetary Society, contains literature and art (Visions of Mars), greetings from Mars visionaries of our day, and names of 21st century Earthlings who wanted to send their names to Mars. This DVD-ROM is designed to be read on personal computers in 2007. Information is stored in a spiral groove on the disc. A laser beam can scan the groove when metallized or a microscope can be used. Very small bumps and holes represent the zeroes and ones of digital information. The groove is about 0.74 micrometres wide. For more information refer to the standards document ECMA-268 (80 mm DVD Read-Only Disk). | ” |
Read more about this topic: Phoenix (spacecraft)