Dear Phoenix lander, you always find new ways to both delight and torture us.

ENGADGET: Anthropomorphized Mars lander in terminal "Groundhog Day" mode, tugging heartstrings

The first detailed color pictures from the Phoenix lander arrived on Earth Monday.

NPR: Phoenix Sends Color Photos of Mars to NASA

They show one of the legs of an American craft called Mars Phoenix Lander which touched down near the planet's north pole on May 25th 2008 and operated until it was disabled by the gathering winter in November.

ECONOMIST: Water on Mars

Based on the Phoenix lander, the craft is tasked with giving us a peek beneath the planet's surface, armed with tools that include a geodetic instrument from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which will be used to calculate Mars' rotation axis, a seismic wave sensor and a subsurface heat probe, to measure the planet's internal temperature.

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The half-billion-dollar Phoenix Mars Lander touched down on the planet Sunday night to begin at least three months of experiments.

NPR: Phoenix Sends Color Photos of Mars to NASA

As early as tonight, the NASA team will upload repeating commands designed to "wring a few additional weather measurements" out of Phoenix by placing it in "terminal science mode, " meaning that the lander will repeat the same sequence of actions over and over again, every day before shutting down for 19 hours.

ENGADGET: Anthropomorphized Mars lander in terminal "Groundhog Day" mode, tugging heartstrings