This image from the Surface Stereo Imager on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander
shows morning frost inside the "Snow White" trench dug by the lander, in
addition to subsurface ice exposed by use of a rasp on the floor of the
trench.
The camera took this image at about 9 a.m. local solar time during the
113th Martian day of the mission (Sept. 18, 2008). Bright material near
and below the four-by-four set of rasp holes in the upper half of the
image is water-ice exposed by rasping and scraping in the trench earlier
the same morning. Other bright material especially around the edges of the
trench, is frost. Earlier in the mission, when the sun stayed above the
horizon all night, morning frost was not evident in the trench.
This image is presented in approximately true color.
The trench is 4 to 5 centimeters (about 2 inches) deep, about 23
centimeters (9 inches) wide.
Phoenix landed on a Martian arctic plain on May 25, 2008. The mission is
led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf of NASA. Project
management of the mission is led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development was by Lockheed Martin Space
Systems, Denver.
