[meteorite-list] NASA Phoenix Mars Lander Confirms Frozen Water

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-113a

NASA Phoenix Mars Lander Confirms Frozen Water
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
June 20, 2008

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Scientists relishing confirmation of water ice near the
surface beside NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander anticipate even bigger
discoveries from the robotic mission in the weeks ahead.

"It is with great pride and a lot of joy that I announce today that we
have found proof that this hard bright material is really water ice and
not some other substance," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter
Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, during a Friday news
briefing to announce the confirmation of water ice.

"The truth we're looking for is not just looking at ice. It is in
finding out the minerals, chemicals and hopefully the organic materials
associated with these discoveries," said Smith

The mission has the right instruments for analyzing soil and ice to
determine whether the local environment just below the surface of
far-northern Mars has ever been favorable for microbial life. Key
factors are whether the water ever becomes available as a liquid and
whether organic compounds are present that could provide chemical
building blocks and energy for life. Phoenix landed on May 25 for a Mars
surface mission planned to last for three months.

"These latest developments are a major accomplishment and validation of
the Mars Program's 'follow-the-water' exploration framework," said Doug
McCuistion at NASA Headquarters, Washington, director of the space
agency's Mars Program. "This specific discovery is the result of an
outstanding team working with a robust spacecraft that has allowed them
to work ahead of their original science schedule."

The key new evidence is that chunks of bright material exposed by
digging on June 15 and still present on June 16 had vaporized by June
19. "This tells us we've got water ice within reach of the arm, which
means we can continue this investigation with the tools we brought with
us," said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, College Station, lead
scientist for Phoenix's Surface Stereo Imager camera. He said the
disappearing chunks could not have been carbon-dioxide ice at the local
temperatures because that material would not have been stable for even
one day as a solid.

The disappearing chunks were in a trench to the northwest of the lander.
A hard material, possibly more ice, but darker than the bright material
in the first trench, has been detected in a second trench, to the
northeast of the lander. Scientists plan next to have Phoenix collect
and analyze surface soil from a third trench near the second one, and
later to mechanically probe and sample the hard layer.

"We have in our ice-attack arsenal backhoeing, scraping and rasping, and
we'll try all of these," said Ray Arvidson of Washington University in
St. Louis, lead scientist for Phoenix's Robotic Arm.

Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, reported that an issue reported earlier this week
related to producing thousands of duplicate copies of some
file-maintenance data files has been diagnosed, and a corrective
software patch will be sent to Phoenix within a few days. Science
operations continue in the meantime, though all data collected must be
relayed to Earth on the same Martian day it is collected, instead of
being stored to non-volatile memory when Phoenix powers down to conserve
energy during the Martian night.

Images sent back Friday morning from Mars showed that the doors to the
Number 5 oven on the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer opened part way.
The instrument team is working to understand the consequences of this
action.

The Phoenix mission is led by Smith of the University of Arizona 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