The Lander has been scouring the Martian landscape, looking for signs of water on Mars. And now, it appears to have done just that, by uncovering a a white substance that then evaporated, proving it to be water ice.
Digging Up Ice on Mars
Phoenix dug into the soil in a trench on Mars with its robotic arm. On June 15, 2008, the trench, nicknamed Dodo-Goldilocks, gave up some of its secrets. The robotic arm hit a hard surface. Images showed that a white substance lay underneath the rusty-colored Martian soil. The question that scientists needed to have answered was, is this material on Mars ice or salt?
Four Martian days after the white substance was uncovered by Phoenix's robotic arm, images showed that some of it had "disappeared". The exposed material had vaporized.
"It must be ice," says 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."
Scientists believe the ice was water ice and not carbon-dioxide ice, because at local temperatures carbon-dioxide ice would not have been stable for even one day as a solid.
In the image, the small white dice-sized chunks at lower left disappear when viewed again a few days later.
More Ice on Mars?
The Phoenix mission is already proving to be a huge success, however, the little spacecraft that could isn't done yet. On June 20, the robotic arm was digging in a different trench called Snow White 2 when it once again hit a hard surface beneath the Martian dust. This hard layer lies at the same depth as the ice found in the Dodo-Goldilocks trench. It appears Phoenix may have hit ice once again.
The region on Mars that Phoenix Lander is working in has been called the "Wonderland" site. This location was specifically chosen for the likelihood of finding water or ice under the surface.
Does Water on Mars = Life on Mars?
Another question that the Phoenix Lander team has been hoping to answer is "Can the Martian arctic support life?". The search for water on Mars, or anywhere else in the Universe for that matter, goes hand-in-hand with the search for life beyond Earth. The robotic arm is scooping the soil and ice and delivering samples to the mission's experiments in an effort to answer the question of the viability of life on Mars.
The discovery of water or ice on Mars also paves the way for future missions to Mars. Both robotic and human explorations will likely follow in the wake of these important new findings.
Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California
