Engineering: More ice found on Mars

 

NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander exposed more of an icy layer.

Scrabble Word Finder

Scrabble Cheat

With its robotic arm, NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander exposed more of a hard icy layer just below the Martian surface.

In order to collect a more substantial sample of the site for analysis, the mission crew on land sent commands to Phoenix to extend its efforts in the trench, the team dubbed ‘Snow White’.

The craft dug the eight by 12 inch trench last Saturday, which was extended a further six inches on Monday.

Project leader of the dig, Ray Arvidson from Washington University in St. Louis, told Space.com: "Right now, there is not enough real estate of dark icy soil in the trench to do a sample acquisition test and later a full-up acquisition [for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA).]”

TEGA is an instrument onboard Phoenix that ‘bakes’ the Martian soil samples in its tiny oven and analyses the sample’s resulting vapour to determine the dirt’s composition.

"The Phoenix science team is working diligently to analyse the results of the tests from these various instruments," Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith, from the University of Arizona, told Space.com. "The preliminary signatures we are seeing are intriguing. Before we release results, we want to verify that our interpretations are correct by conducting laboratory tests."

Mars analysis

Meet our Role Model who analyses soil composition Mars’ soil composition.

You’ve read it. Now review it.

Back to top

Back to top