Not an expert but I imagine it’s the ocean depth. If the atmosphere above determines the temperature, and the ice at the surface acts as an insulator, the deeper parts of the ocean don’t get cold enough to freeze.
(The lander will contain a box of various mementos. Since the contents of that box were collected in the middle of the cryptocurrency craze, various groups of course included various tokens representing their favorite coin, especially as “to the moon” was and is a meme representing the desired massive rise in value.)
The possible reasons are all pretty bland; gravitational lensing, nebular refracting, or they weren't stars at all but rather asteroids (with a vector of motion in-line to that of the LoS of the observation).
It's not like these stars had ever been catalogued before the first plate, so its not like these objects were long-standing unchanging phenomena that suddenly disappeared. These are hour-long transients of which there have been hundreds recorded.
Either one has nothing to do with the Mars society. They are not a government body, have never received (or even applied for) funding from any nation state.
astronomy
Top
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.