Neighbors
A few billion years ago this planet formed, orbiting an otherwise run-of-the-mill star. It was a wet world, covered with oceans, with a protective atmosphere. Water dominated the surface. There may have even been the beginnings of life there.
Space is brutal; a significantly large asteroid slams into the planet. The impact scatters debris into space, and tears much of the atmosphere away. It also causes massive volcanism. The result is a planet with a thin atmosphere and a nearly solid core, covered with water.
With a solidifying core, the planet loses most of it's magnetic field. Without a magnetic field, there's no way to regenerate a protective atmosphere. Slowly heat leaks out to space, the oceans evaporate and freeze. The surface, once tropical, drops to -150F; dry-ice forms at the poles in winter.
Over a billion years, the thin atmosphere carries enough dust around to bury all signs of the oceans, now frozen like glaciers. Impacts of other asteroids carry more debris and cover the ice.
Eventually the neighbors get curious, and start exploring. They send little robot cars to poke at the planet, and satellites to photograph it from above....
As an Engineering Specialist, it is Mike Deliman's responsibility to enable customers to achieve success in their endeavors, assist sales groups in evangelizing Wind River's technologies, and bring feedback of customer needs and experiences back into Marketing and Engineering. Mike has over 15 years of experience with VxWorks. 
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