Phoenix Mission Receives OK to Listen for Sounds on Mars

Good news, everyone! The jillions of you who have asked me "are they ever going to record sounds using microphone on Phoenix?" now have at least part of an answer: NASA has given the Phoenix mission the permission to attempt to power on the microphone. Now, whether that means we will finally have sounds from Mars as The Planetary Society has been trying to get for more than a decade isn't certain. The instrument might not work now, and it might not be sensitive enough to record the sounds that are in Phoenix' environment. But it's worth a try. I have much more information in a news story here.

(Hat tip to Leonard David for breaking this story; he also reports that, as everyone expected, the mission has officially been extended into mid-November.)