Mars Lander eyes ice on Mars, scientists believe
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Scientists in charge of the Phoenix Mars lander are more convinced there is ice near the Martian North pole as they review new images from the Red Planet.
Eight small pieces of a bright material "have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it," said a statement from Jet Propulsion Laboratory's website.
"It must be ice," said 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."
The bright dice-sized bits were left four days ago in a trench scientists dubbed "Dodo-Goldilocks" and were not there when the lander took a new later image of the trench. Scientists believe the ice evaporated when exposed to the sun.
Phoenix's robotic arm also on Thursday in another trench made contact with a hard surface scientists believe could be an icy layer.
"We have dug a trench and uncovered a hard layer at the same depth as the ice layer in our other trench," said Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, co-investigator for the robotic arm.
After trying to crack further into it, the arm became immobilized, which is the expected programmed reaction for when it hits a hard surface.
A third technical glitch but the mission Tuesday; it landed near the Martian North pole on May 25. The two previous ones involved two US satellites orbiting the Red Planet that relay information between the probe and Earth.
Yet "the mission is well ahead of schedule. We are making excellent progress toward full mission success," said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein.
The three-month Phoenix mission is hoping to find evidence of the existence of water and life-supporting organic minerals in the polar region.
If water filtered down on Mars it would have left its mark on surrounding minerals. Impurities in any ice detected could tell a great deal about the climactic history of this region of the planet.
Mars is currently too cold for liquid water but it is possible that in some distant past the polar regions were warmer, scientists posit.
Water is a main ingredient for life and the polar region at some point may have been habitable: that is a puzzle Phoenix is exploring
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