Over the next week look up! As Mars and Saturn travel their paths in the heavens they will appear to align as seen from Earth. This happens every twenty-five months whether anyone or not appreciates the event, and it just happens this cycle as our metal fingers begin their experimental sampling of flakes scraped off our neighbor, determining just how welcome Terran lifeforms would be. So far it's found a lesson already known to rocketmen, "Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids. In fact it's cold as hell."

It's not going to be much better for your garden either, despite a flurry of reports this week proclaiming a new garden spot in the solar system. In a scientific fashion the discovery of water-soluble salts necessary for life is reassuring if not surprising. The measured alkaline nature of the collected samples is received with relief that it could have been worse, but even for an asparagus the announcement isn't such fortuitous news.

The fact remains Mars is entirely too cold for plant life as we know it, and the wispy gusts of the Martian atmosphere are no less forbidding blowing across its dry desolate surface. We're not talking dark night deep winter Siberia cold, since any such extreme conditions (by terrestrial standards) would be idyllic were they to be found elsewhere in the solar system. But we might as well be wishing on the moon, for such (if not better conditions) exist only in the past (and future?) of the Red Planet. Despite its color nothing red I like eating would grow without great aid. Tomatoes and strawberries both prefer their roots in far more acidic soil than suggested by Phoenix. Also the sunlight's not so good even if the dust storms didn't cloud the thin sky nearly constantly.

However thanks to the lander we now know Mars is dirty, at least in context as (relatively) friendly to the needs of growing plants. That's according to an onboard instrument called the MECA (Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer) used to examine handfuls of scrapings collected from a trench dug out by the probe's scoop. Using its clever design MECA detected ions essential to growth like magnesium, potassium, and others not so conducive like sodium and chloride ions. Yet without access to a few more elements like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, despite the best efforts of any gardener without them there won't be any abundant life. We must continue to wait like potted plants for more results from Phoenix's fires.