Bright Chunks At Phoenix Lander's Mars Site Must Have Been Ice

June 19, 2008 / Posted by: Marco Boldt

Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it.

“It must be ice,” said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. “These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it’s ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can’t do that.”

The chunks were left at the bottom of a trench informally called “Dodo-Goldilocks” when Phoenix’s Robotic Arm enlarged that trench on June 15, during the 20th Martian day, or sol, since landing. Several were gone when Phoenix looked at the trench early today, on Sol 24.

Also early today, digging in a different trench, the Robotic Arm connected with a hard surface that has scientists excited about the prospect of next uncovering an icy layer.

The Phoenix science team spent Thursday analyzing new images and data successfully returned from the lander earlier in the day.

Studying the initial findings from the new “Snow White 2” trench, located to the right of “Snow White 1,” Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, co-investigator for the robotic arm, said, “We have dug a trench and uncovered a hard layer at the same depth as the ice layer in our other trench.”

On Sol 24, Phoenix extended the first trench in the middle of a polygon at the “Wonderland” site. While digging, the Robotic Arm came upon a firm layer, and after three attempts to dig further, the arm went into a holding position. Such an action is expected when the Robotic Arm comes upon a hard surface.

Meanwhile, the spacecraft team at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver is preparing a software patch to send to Phoenix in a few days so scientific data can again be saved onboard overnight when needed. Because of a large amount a duplicative file-maintenance data generated by the spacecraft Tuesday, the team is taking the precaution of not storing science data in Phoenix’s flash memory, and instead downlinking it at the end of every day, until the conditions that produced those duplicative data files are corrected.

“We now understand what happened, and we can fix it with a software patch,” said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena. “Our three-month schedule has 30 days of margin for contingencies like this, and we have used only one contingency day out of 24 sols. The mission is well ahead of schedule. We are making excellent progress toward full mission success.”

Source: [Link]

Jun 20, 2008

Ram Vasudev said:

“It must be ice.”

Not necessarily (based on the evidence described here). It could be CO2 that sublimated when exposed. The bright material needs to be chemically analyzed.

Jun 22, 2008

Hemanth Kumar said:

Hello everyone

This comment has noting to do with the above topic and i am sorry if someone is offended by it.
I just hope few eyeballs will read My observation and comment on it.

Its about “Evolution of Planets “

1) Four Billion years ago all the planets where in gases state very Hot with Hydrogen and helium ( or may we say simpler and primary elements ) as there major composition .

2)Due to hot temperature and highly reactive hydrogen as there major composition .The elements reacted with each other and slowly formed heavy elements,this was possible due to changing pressures and temperatures

3)In this transition years of planets from gases mass to liquid giants to solid masses there will be a time line or time period where ** Jupiter , Saturn , Mars and even Neptune ** would have had a Time period where climate , atmosphere and planets composition was conducive to Life , simple or even complex form of life.
At present “Earth is in its evolution phase where life can be sustained “ say from 1 Billion years .

4)Even Jupiter , Saturn Mars and Neptune would have had a Phase in there evolution where the conditions where favorable for life to exist .

5)Due to changes in climate , Hurricane , acid rains the heavy elements and other elements would have reacted with each other and formed gases masses again very slowly.

Here On earth we see many life forms living in very extrema conditions under the sea bed and some viruses even surviving in vacuum and harsh UV rays
.Life as we know has its own ways to adjust and evolve with respect to Environment .