NASA Lander 'Phoenix' Outfitted With CD From Earth:



The photo above shows the base of 'Phoenix' which is outfitted with a disc labeled 'Messages from Earth'. The date is 2007 so if any creatures loaded up with CDROMs stumble upon the lander they may be a bit behind the times. Here are some more details...

Attached to the deck of the lander (next to the US Flag) is "The Phoenix DVD", compiled by the Planetary Society. The disc contains Visions of Mars, a multimedia collection of literature and art about the Red Planet. Works include the text of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds (and its infamous radio broadcast by Orson Welles), Percival Lowell's Mars as the Abode of Life with a map of his proposed canals, Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, and Kim Stanley Robinson's Green Mars. There are also messages directly addressed to future Martian visitors or settlers from, among others, Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke. In 2006, The Planetary Society collected a quarter million names submitted through the internet and placed them on the disc, which claims, on the front, to be "the first library on Mars".

The Phoenix DVD is made of a special silica glass designed to withstand the Martian environment, lasting for hundreds (if not thousands) of years on the surface while it awaits discoverers.

Awesome. But isn't 'War of the Worlds' a bit much?