NASA just finished a briefing on the Phoenix Mars Lander, and released what I consider the money shot of the mission so far — the bright blue lander against a Martian reddish landscape, taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. Apparently other folks thought the same thing — applause broke out in the briefing room when that photo was displayed.

NASA / JPL

At the briefing, Fuk Li of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Phoenix is healthy, but that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is having a bit of a communication problem. But he says the problem will not endanger the goals of the mission.

NASA also released photos taken by Phoenix of its robotic arm, and the neighborhood it landed in. That photo shows a white dot on the horizon, believed to be the lander’s parachute. You can see those photos, and more, here.

Diane Hawkins-Cox, senior producer, CNN Sci-Tech Unit

Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured an image of Phoenix plummeting to the Martian surface with its parachute deployed.

“This is an engineer’s delight,” says Project Manager Barry Goldstein.

Very cool shot.

– Correspondent Miles O’Brien, CNN Science & Technology

NASA is about to release some stunning images from The Phoenix Mars Lander - and one of the satellites orbiting the Red Planet.

Miles O’Brien

Okay, so I’m here in Pasadena covering the Mars landing, but yet another planet has stolen my attention for the moment. My brother sent this compelling picture to me. Do you recognize it?

Source: NASA, ESA, M. Wong, I. de Pater (UC Berkeley), et al.

No, it’s not a plate of bacon and eggs. For more than 300 years, that signature storm on Jupiter known as The Great Red Spot has been eye candy for telescopic viewers around the world.

In 2006, a second red spot appeared, and just last month the Hubble trained its Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on yet a third one.

So what accounts for this planetary acne outbreak? Prom season perhaps?

Scientists think climate change is the culprit, as the giant gas planet gets warmer near the equator.

– Alex Walker, Producer, CNN Science & Technology

Check this out…it is one of the first color pictures from Phoenix.

Source: NASA/JPL/Univ. of Arizona

To scientsts, this terrain looks a lot like Earth’s arctic tundra. Data from the Mars Odyssey spacecraft has shown that this area is rich in water, most likely in the form of permafrost. The Phoenix science team is betting that the cold conditions at the pole have preserved all sorts of organic chemicals in the ice.

Analysis of those chemicals will help scientists figure out if conditions were ever right in this location to nurture life. As for finding actual living organisms, such as microbes, lead scientist Peter Smith plays down the likelihood. The instruments really aren’t designed for that. And, as Smith puts it, it would be an incredible stroke of luck to find life on the first try. It’s not like there’s a signpost on Mars telling us Earthlings to “Look Here for Life!” with a big arrow pointing to it!

–Kate Tobin, Sr. Producer, CNN Science & Technology

The Phoenix team will be rolling out some new images from Mars at 2 PM Eastern/11 AM Pacific. We will show them on CNN as soon as we get them. Or you can always find them at www.nasa.gov/phoenix.

Miles O’Brien

For those of you who would like to know exactly where the Phoenix Mars Lander is on the surface of Mars, the coordinates are 68 degrees north latitude and 233 degrees east longitude. I dare you to plug this into to the GPS on your dashboard. Wonder what the Garmin Gal will say about that destination? recalcualting…recalculating…recalculating…

Miles O’Brien

Here’s one of the first images from Phoenix Mars Lander showing what the landscape looks like on the frozen tundra of Mar’s Northern plains.

Source: NASA/JPL/Univ. of Arizona

It looks pretty much as they thought it would - flat as far as the eye can see. The expectation is that the ground in the area is a mixture of dirt and permafrost, and the scientists say it is as hard a concrete.

Phoenix’s robotic arm is outfitted with a little rasp that can be used to drill down into that hard ground to loosen it. A scoop on the end of the arm will then scrape it up and transport it to the science instruments aboard the lander.

One part of the instrument suite involves a set of tiny ovens that will heat up and vaporize some of that icy dirt an analyze the chemical components. Another experiment will mix Martian dirt with water brought from earth in little tea-cup sized reservoirs, this time to study the chemistry of the soil.

The Phoenix team will hold another briefing at 2p Eastern today, where we will hopefully see more pictures and hear more about the plan going forward. If things go as planned, they will start moving the robotic arm as early as Tuesday.

–Kate Tobin, Sr. Producer, CNN Science & Technology

I am always striving to find analogies to explain the challenge of navigating a spacecraft more than 400 million miles and landing in an ellipse 40 long and 15 miles wide.

Well the head of space science for NASA - Ed Weiler came through for me (as he often does) with this one: It is like hitting a tee shot in Washington and making a hole-in-one in Sydney.

Thanks Ed. Helps history majors like me understand what rocket science is all about.

– Miles

There is no assignment more fun in my world than a Mars landing. The mix of excitement, anxiety and adventure are hard to match.

Steve Squyres from the Mars Rovers team, CNN’s Miles O’Brien and photographer Styke Dimas

I think much of the allure has something to do with the “all-in” high-stakes gamble that is the coin of the realm in this racket.

The people who populate the business of exploring other planets would probably be at home playing poker on a riverboat.

I cannot think of another profession where so much time and effort is focused on a single, highly risky event. If only one widget fails, they all go home empty handed - their blood, sweat time and tears down the tubes.

But when they win, they win big. Really big. And the thing is we all get to share in the winnings - because these riverboat gamblers play with an open hand.

Maybe they will turn over a card on Mars and find something very profound - something that makes us think about our place in the universe.

What are the odds anyway?

– Correspondent Miles O’Brien, CNN Science & Technology