NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is enlarging a trench informally named "Snow
White" to prepare a cleaned-off area at the top of a subsurface layer of
hard material, possibly ice-rich soil.
This image taken by Phoenix's Surface Stereo Imager camera on July 13th,
the 48th Martian day, or sol, since landing, shows the trench after the
previous sol's work by the lander's Robotic Arm. The size of the trench in
the image is about 30 centimeters (12 inches) by 20 centimeters (8
inches). A shadow of Phoenix's helical antenna falls across the scene,
which is on the northeast side of the lander. The image was taken at 3:32
p.m. local solar time at the Phoenix landing site.
The Phoenix team plans to use the arm to extend the trench about 15
centimeters (6 inches) further, working toward the lander, in order to
have enough surface area both for testing use of the powered rasp on the
back of the scoop and also to use a combination of rasping and scooping to
gather a sample of ice-rich material for delivering to the Thermal and
Evolved-Gas Analyzer.
The Phoenix Mission is led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf
of NASA. Project management of the mission is by NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development is by Lockheed Martin
Space Systems, Denver.