LOS ANGELES (AP) - June 19, 2008 Crumbs of bright material initially photographed in the trench
later vanished, meaning they must have been frozen water that
vaporized after being exposed, Peter Smith of the University of
Arizona, Tucson, said in a statement.
"These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of
a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice," Smith said.
"There had been some question whether the bright material was
salt. Salt can't do that."
Phoenix Mars is studying whether the arctic region of the Red
Planet could be habitable. The probe is using its robotic arm to
dig up soil samples, and scientists hope it will find frozen water.
However, an initial soil sample heated in a science instrument
failed to yield evidence of water.
The bright material was seen in the bottom of a trench dubbed
"Dodo-Goldilocks" that Phoenix enlarged on June 15. Several of
the bright crumbs were gone when the spacecraft looked into the
trench again early Thursday, NASA said.
Phoenix's arm, meanwhile, encountered a hard surface while
digging another trench Thursday and scientists were hopeful of
uncovering an icy layer, the space agency said. That trench is
called "Snow White 2."
The arm went into a "holding position" after three attempts to
dig further, which is expected when it the reaches a hard surface,
NASA said.
Scientists have been using names from fairy tales and mythology
to designate geologic features around Phoenix and the trenches it
has been digging.
In 2002, the orbiting Mars Odyssey detected hints of a vast
store of ice below the surface of Mars' polar regions. The arctic
terrain where Phoenix touched down has polygon shapes in the ground
similar to those found in Earth's permafrost regions. The patterns
on Earth are caused by seasonal expansion and shrinking of
underground ice.
Engineers also have prepared a software patch to send up to
Phoenix to fix a problem that surfaced Tuesday in the use of its
flash memory. NASA said that because Phoenix generated a large
amount of duplicative file-maintenance data that day, the mission
team has been avoiding storing science data in the flash memory and
is instead transmitting it to Earth at the end of each day.
"We now understand what happened, and we can fix it with a
software patch," said Barry Goldstein, the Phoenix project manager
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
Phoenix landed near Mars' north pole on May 25. The $420 million
mission is planned to last 90 days.
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On the Net:
http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu
Scientists: Mars lander exposed ice crumbs
By 6abc
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