Latest Martian soil Stories

By Alicia Chang LOS ANGELES - The apparent discovery of ice near Mars' north pole has scientists asking: Did the frozen water melt at some point in the planet's long history to create an environment friendly for life? The Phoenix spacecraft exposed bright white crumbs at the bottom of a trench while digging near Mars' north pole earlier this week. The bits disappeared in new photos sent back on Thursday, convincing scientists that the magic act was evidence of ice that vaporized after being...

By JOHN VON RADOWITZ WATER ice was discovered on Mars yesterday by the Phoenix probe which landed on the planet last month. Mission controllers had been excited by chunks of white material in the Martian soil exposed by the craft's robot arm. Yesterday, scientists confirmed what they had hoped . . . that the material was frozen water. Phoenix principal investigator Dr Peter Smith said: "It is with great pride and a lot of joy that I announce today that we have found proof that this...

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander began digging in an area called "Wonderland" early Tuesday, taking its first scoop of soil from a polygonal surface feature within the "national park" region that mission scientists have been preserving for science. The lander's Robotic Arm created the new test trench called "Snow White" on June 17, the 22nd Martian day, or sol, after the Phoenix spacecraft landed on May 25. Newly planned science activities will resume no earlier than...

Scientists are trying to determine whether the Phoenix lander has found ice or salt on Mars.It's been three weeks since Phoenix touched ground on Mars' north pole region with the mission of finding more clues as to whether or not the planet could be habitable. Equipped with a backhoe-like robotic arm, Phoenix has turned up specks of what appears to be white material amongst the red dirt. Photos show that the white matter is only present in the top part of the trench. Over the weekend, Phoenix...

NASA's Phoenix probe scraped the frigid Martian ground with its robotic arm on Friday and revealed what looks like a layer of ice or perhaps bright salt just beneath the red soil. The lander also sent back its first microscopic pictures gathered from a scoopful of Martian soil, showing a mix of tiny red particles, minerals and glassy volcanic sand. The findings suggest that Phoenix has landed in a good place to carry out its scientific mission of detailing the history of water and...

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Phoenix probe scraped the frigid Martian ground with its robotic arm on Friday and revealed what looks like a layer of ice or perhaps bright salt just beneath the red soil. The lander also sent back its first microscopic pictures gathered from a scoopful of Martian soil, showing a mix of tiny red particles, minerals and glassy volcanic sand. The findings suggest that Phoenix has landed in a good place to carry out its scientific mission of...

TUCSON, Ariz. -- New observations from NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander provide the most magnified view ever seen of Martian soil, showing particles clumping together even at the smallest visible scale. In the past two days, two instruments on the lander deck -- a microscope and a bake-and-sniff analyzer -- have begun inspecting soil samples delivered by the scoop on Phoenix's Robotic Arm. "This is the first time since the Viking missions three decades ago that a sample is being studied inside...

TUCSON, Ariz. - NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has filled its first oven with Martian soil. "We have an oven full," Phoenix co-investigator Bill Boynton of the University of Arizona, Tucson, said today. "It took 10 seconds to fill the oven. The ground moved." Boynton leads the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer instrument, or TEGA, for Phoenix. The instrument has eight separate tiny ovens to bake and sniff the soil to assess its volatile ingredients, such as water. The lander's...

Scientists ran into a snag when trying to deliver a sample of Martian arctic soil to one of the instruments on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, mission controllers said on Saturday. The lander's robotic arm released a handful of clumpy Martian soil onto a screened opening of the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA) on Friday, but the instrument did not confirm that any of the sample passed through the screen. Images taken on Friday show soil resting on the screen over an...

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander successfully scooped up a sample of Martian soil with its robotic arm, mission scientists said on Friday. The scoop is poised and ready to deliver the sample to an instrument on the spacecraft that will analyze the soil. "This is really an important occasion for us, to be poised to make a measurement for the first time of the Martian arctic soil," said Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona....