[meteorite-list] NASA Phoenix Lander Bakes Sample, Arm Digs Deeper

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-111b

NASA Phoenix Lander Bakes Sample, Arm Digs Deeper
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
June 16, 2008

TUCSON, Ariz. -- One of the ovens on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander
continued baking its first sample of Martian soil over the weekend,
while the Robotic Arm dug deeper into the soil to learn more about white
material first revealed on June 3.

"The oven is working very well and living up to our expectations," said
Phoenix co-investigator Bill Boynton of the University of Arizona,
Tucson. Boynton leads the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA), or
oven instrument, for Phoenix.

Phoenix has eight separate tiny ovens to bake and sniff the soil and
look for volatile ingredients, such as water. This baking is performed
at three different temperature ranges.

On Sol 18 (June 12), the lander's Robotic Arm dug deeper into the two
trenches, informally called "Dodo" and "Goldilocks," where white
material was previously found. This created one large trench, now called
"Dodo-Goldilocks."

"We have continued to excavate in the Dodo-Goldilocks trench to expose
more of the light-toned material, and we will monitor the site," said
Robotic Arm lead scientist Ray Arvidson of the University of Washington,
St. Louis. "If the material is ice, it should change with time. Frost
may form on it, or it could slowly sublimate." Sublimation is the
process where a solid changes directly into gas.

The Dodo-Goldilocks trench is 22 centimeters wide (8.7 inches) and 35
centimeters long (13.8 inches). The trench is seven to eight centimeters
(2.7 to 3 inches) deep at its deepest. The deepest portion is closest to
the lander.

The white material is located only at the shallowest part of the trench,
farthest from the lander, indicating that it is not continuous
throughout the excavated site. The trench might be exposing a ledge, or
only a portion of a slab, of the white material, according to scientists.

The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith with project management at JPL
and development partnership at Lockheed Martin, located in Denver.
International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the
University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and
Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish
Meteorological Institute. For more about Phoenix, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix and http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu.

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Media contacts: Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov

Sara Hammond 520-626-1974
University of Arizona, Tucson
shammond at lpl.arizona.edu