Phoenix - Sol 4

Scientists have discovered what may be ice that was exposed when soil was blown away as NASA's Phoenix spacecraft landed on Mars on 25th May 2008. The possible ice appears in an image the robotic arm camera took underneath the lander, near a footpad.

"We could very well be seeing rock, or we could be seeing exposed ice in the retrorocket blast zone," said Ray Arvidson, "We'll test the two ideas by getting more data, including color data, from the robotic arm camera. We think that if the hard features are ice, they will become brighter because atmospheric water vapor will collect as new frost on the ice.

"Full confirmation of what we're seeing will come when we excavate and analyze layers in the nearby workspace," Arvidson said.

Testing last night of a Phoenix instrument that bakes and sniffs samples to identify ingredients identified a possible short circuit. This prompted commands for diagnostic steps to be developed and sent to the lander in the next few days. The instrument is the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer. It includes a calorimeter that tracks how much heat is needed to melt or vaporize substances in a sample, plus a mass spectrometer to examine vapors driven off by the heat. The 29th May, tests recorded electrical behavior consistent with an intermittent short circuit in the spectrometer portion.

"We have developed a strategy to gain a better understanding of this behavior, and we have identified workarounds for some of the possibilities," said William Boynton.

The latest data from the Canadian Space Agency's weather station shows another sunny day at the Phoenix landing site with temperatures holding at minus 30 Celsius as the sol's high, and a low of minus 80 Celsius. The lidar instrument was activated for a 15-minute period just before noon local Mars time, and showed increasing dust in the atmosphere.

"This is the first time lidar technology has been used on the surface of another planet," said Mike Daly, "The team is elated that we are getting such interesting data about the dust dynamics in the atmosphere."

"We're still in the process of checking out our instruments," Leslie Tamppari said, "The process is designed to be very flexible, to respond to discoveries and issues that come up every day. We're in the process of taking images and getting color information that will help us understand soil properties. This will help us understand where best to first touch the soil and then where and how best to dig."

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Phoenix
• Mars
• Lander

[sniper152]

this is 2008, WHY are the pictures ALWAYS blurred and out of focus?

[everaim]

totally agree...

[PigsCanFly99]

drill into suspect ice .. do you get ice shavings? apply thermal tip to suspect ice .. do you get melting i.e. solid to liquid phase transformation? Apply conductivity meter to suspect ice (with heat) .. do we register electronic conduction? drop some anhydrous copper sulfate (white) powder .. does it turn a distinct blue .. positive test for water re; hydrous copper sulfate. I'm not convinced the mission specialists actually took high-school chemistry. Let alone "shop".

[robbycadel]

if you,s wanted to study ice on mars why the fuck didnt ya,s land the fucken thing on either of the polar caps instead of scratchin round in the fuckin dirt like an old chook , waist,n power, ... for fuck sake . i,m fucken over this shit ,might just wait 30 years an go look for me self, fucken dick heads

[alien8ted]

The pictures are NOT always blurred and out of focus. Scientists take different kinds of photos for different reasons, this one is a quick 360 dgree site scan to quickly give an image of the terrain the probe is in. Later they will take more detailed and colour photos, which take much longer to transmit to Earth.

[blackjack000]

I think they should have given less gravity (figurative) to the possible picture of exposed ice. Contrascientists will be sure to jump on the "scientists were wrong!" bandwagon if it shows they were just protruding rocks. We're in an age where we have to be incredibly particular in what we say, being that out-of-context quotations are the new norm.

But still, great video. Thanks for posting it.

[A1R5N1P3R]

Sure, remote controlled exploration of Mars; the future host of a NASA manned base - that's nothing right? So sad you don't have a clue. BTQ, thx for uploading this historic footage, I appreciate the effort.

[semiliteratedgod]

this Phoenix shit is so lame that these vids are fucking amusing

[semiliteratedgod]

lol