U Arizona Brings Phoenix Mars Mission to iTunes U

The University of Arizona has brought video and animation relating to the Phoenix Mars Mission onto iTunes U, the education-focused portal hosted on Apple's iTunes. U Arizona is the lead on the mission, the first in a NASA program aimed at launching smaller missions to Mars designed to complement larger ones.

With the Phoenix mission, U Arizona became the first public university to take the lead role in a mission to Mars. Launched Aug. 4, 2007, with touchdown by the Phoenix Mars Lander on Mars's surface May 25, 2008, the mission will investigate water ice believed to be buried just beneath the surface in Mars's northern arctic plains in a region called Vastitas Borealis at 68 degrees north latitude, 234 degrees east longitude. (The mission's team released an image June 2 of Martian soil captured in a test by the lander's robotic arm scoop showing small white patches that could be ice or salt.) The aim is to explore whether the Martian arctic can--or used to be able to--support life. It's also studying the history of water at the landing site and exploring how polar dynamics affect the planet's climate.

The project is overseen by Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the university's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in the Department of Planetary Sciences. The project is also managed by Barry Goldstein at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Ed Sedivy of Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. A wide range of academic and other institutions are involved in the project as well. A list can be found here.

While a wide range of still images, videos and animations are available through U Arizona's Phoenix Mars Mission Web site, the iTunes U portal provides 38 clips (as of this writing) ranging from a minute or so up to more than 47 minutes with taped press conferences, mini-documentaries, and other video materials. All of the materials are available free, and users can subscribe to feeds housed in individual categories.

U Arizona's Phoenix Mars Mission sub-portal on iTunes U can be found here.

The Phoenix Mars Mission is also providing educational content related to the mission, including lesson plans, activities, and multimedia aimed at grades 3 through 12. An education overview can be found here. Lesson plans and activities can be found on the Phoenix Classroom site here.

About the Author

David Nagel is the former editorial director of 1105 Media's Education Group and editor-in-chief of THE Journal, STEAM Universe, and Spaces4Learning. A 30-year publishing veteran, Nagel has led or contributed to dozens of technology, art, marketing, media, and business publications.

He can be reached at [email protected]. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidrnagel/ .


Featured

  • abstract illustration of a glowing AI-themed bar graph on a dark digital background with circuit patterns

    Stanford 2025 AI Index Reveals Surge in Adoption, Investment, and Global Impact as Trust and Regulation Lag Behind

    Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) has released its AI Index Report 2025, measuring AI's diverse impacts over the past year.

  • modern college building with circuit and brain motifs

    Anthropic Launches Claude for Education

    Anthropic has announced a version of its Claude AI assistant tailored for higher education institutions. Claude for Education "gives academic institutions secure, reliable AI access for their entire community," the company said, to enable colleges and universities to develop and implement AI-enabled approaches across teaching, learning, and administration.

  • lightbulb

    Call for Speakers Now Open for Tech Tactics in Education: Overcoming Roadblocks to Innovation

    The annual virtual conference from the producers of Campus Technology and THE Journal will return on September 25, 2025, with a focus on emerging trends in cybersecurity, data privacy, AI implementation, IT leadership, building resilience, and more.

  • From Fire TV to Signage Stick: University of Utah's Digital Signage Evolution

    Jake Sorensen, who oversees sponsorship and advertising and Student Media in Auxiliary Business Development at the University of Utah, has navigated the digital signage landscape for nearly 15 years. He was managing hundreds of devices on campus that were incompatible with digital signage requirements and needed a solution that was reliable and lowered labor costs. The Amazon Signage Stick, specifically engineered for digital signage applications, gave him the stability and design functionality the University of Utah needed, along with the assurance of long-term support.