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Somewhere on the surface of Mars, a sad, famous little robot is clinging to life.

I don't know what it is about sad robots that makes them such objects of empathy. This particular sad robot belongs to the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Its name is the Mars Phoenix lander, an ungainly little device, shaped a bit like a large card table, with a couple of octagonal solar panels sticking out the side. Launched in conjunction with the Canadian Space Agency, it has been parked up around the Martian polar circle since it landed in May, digging around for evidence of water.

The fact that it did indeed find ice on Mars would be enough to distinguish it among spacecraft. (In fact, even landing on Mars is accomplishment enough: Of the 12 spacecraft that tried, only six actually made it.) But Phoenix has distinguished itself for another reason entirely: It is, as far as I can tell, the first spacecraft to become an online celebrity by writing a travelogue in the first person.

By all appearances, the Phoenix lander has been busy blogging from Mars – or, at least, letting someone do an extremely endearing impression of it. Since May, more than 500 short, first-person messages have been posted in the lander's name on Twitter, the suddenly-it's-everywhere micro-blogging service.

The notes have racked up an audience of more than 30,000 subscribers. Many are workaday descriptions of the workaday tasks in the life of a Martian lander: “Sunny days and subfreezing nights. I've been digging up a few new locations, looking for places to grab more samples for the instruments.” Some notes are travelogues, sent back to earthbound correspondents: “Earth's moon looks pretty cool tonight, but I have two moons here: Phobos (fear) & Deimos (dread). If size counts, your moon wins.”

One message in particular was pure euphoria, a post that must have made history for being the first major scientific discovery to be announced on Twitter, in the voice of an excitable robot, even as project scientists were giving sober press conferences. “Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!!”

It started off as a quirky PR experiment at NASA, but it has turned into a minor phenomenon. Phoenix's words are deftly ghostwritten by Veronica McGregor, a former CNN field producer * (and expatriate Montrealer) who works at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. The first-person format was almost an accident: Twitter limits every posting to 140 characters, and with space at a premium, it was more space-efficient to say “I am” than to wrangle with third-person constructions like “The lander is...”

Writing in the first person opened the door for the Phoenix lander to be personal and observational, not just sending back photos of a Martian sunrise, but marvelling at being there to witness it. It also gave the lander a real sense of corporeality, as it flexes its cold arm joints and digs into the soil.

It's real science wrapped in the thinnest veil of anthropomorphism dashed with a bit of Net-speak, like the occasional “woot” or “FTW,” meaning “for the win.” The trick has won over devoted readers, many of whom seem to be increasingly invested in the lander's emotional and physical well-being. The success of its communiqués can be attributed partly to the fact that it's an excellent correspondent. It fields reader questions by the dozen (which McGregor relays to project scientists, before returning with answers “from” the lander).

Lately, the pathos factor has been growing ever stronger. As the Martian seasons turn, the lander's mission will come to an end when the polar light fades and temperatures plummet. These days, more of the lander's messages dwell, with a tinny melancholy, on its own impending death. Some weeks back, it chirped out a typically cheerful premonition. “News of my demise is premature but I appreciate the warm thoughts,” it wrote. “I plan to last many more weeks before ice & darkness win.”

In fact, the lander recently ran a good-humoured contest to write its epitaph. The winner: “Veni, vidi, fodi”: I came, I saw, I dug.

It takes a certain knack to invest an inanimate object with life, but, really, audiences do half the work. The Phoenix lander's online readers – and I include myself here – remind me of so many children confronted with a stuffed animal and offered the choice to suspend their disbelief. At the end of the day, it's much more gratifying to believe that things are alive.

Maybe it's the WALL·E effect: Audiences will endow any piece of space junk with real feeling if you just animate it the right way.

If you want empirical evidence, consider this: The Mars Phoenix isn't the only NASA spacecraft that is blogging on Twitter. The scientists behind Spirit and Opportunity, the twin rovers that have been patrolling Mars for an astounding five years, have also taken to Twittering. Except they evidently didn't get the memo about pretending to be space rovers. Their updates have been interesting, timely and written from the perspective of scientists. And, wouldn't you know it, the rovers have a mere sixth of the following that the Phoenix does.

It's worth asking yourself when a press release from an inanimate object last made you go sniffly. Last week, Phoenix had a near-death experience, losing power and communication. Thinking it was the end, a valedictory note from the freezing lander was posted on Twitter.

“Take care of that beautiful blue marble out there in space, our home planet. I'll be keeping an eye from here,” it wrote. “Space exploration FTW!” Sniffle.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified Veronica McGregor as a reporter for CNN, rather than a field producer