Scientists Think They've Hit Ice On Mars

Ditch Dug By Phoenix Mars Lander Revealed White Clumps Which Disappeared - Or, Melted?

(CBS/AP)  Scientists believe NASA's Phoenix Mars lander exposed bits of ice while recently digging a trench in the soil of the Martian arctic, the mission's principal investigator said Thursday.

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.

"Ice has been the goal of this mission from day one," says CBS News space consultant Bill Harwood. "Confirming the ice is here, I think, is a big shot in the arm for Phoenix and all the science team because it's one thing to think it's there, it's another thing to get there and actually find it. So it's a big step forward for this mission."

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.

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Read CBS News space consultant Bill Harwood's latest updates on the U.S. space program

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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.

[Marie Zarankevich]

guadalcanal3 -- Of course I know that we are exploring, duh! -- I just suspect that they have not shared *everything* with us mere mortals. -- I really do wonder what more they might have discovered that they are not yet ready to tell the world about, if anything. -- I DO have a huge imagination, though. -- Isn''t it wonderful, our being on Mars, and studying it?

[guadalcanal3]

marizara...You don''t know what we are doing on Mars???...It''s called "exploring."...Duh...

[Marie Zarankevich]

Don''t you think they have had ample opportunity to watch ice sublimating at the two Rover sites? -- NASA is very confusing, lately. -- The other thing is, why are we assuming that life HAS to be microbial. -- I postulate that NASA wouldn''t know life if it bit them on the A$$! -- It takes biologists and naturalists and habitat experts to do that. -- I am delighted that NASA found ice on Mars. -- On the other hand, I would LOVE to know what we are DOING up there. -- Wouldn''t you?

[hamiltongrad]

CBScrash07: there are so many assumptions at work here. We assume that the SPACE CRAFT or the parts there of, are not contaminated with earth microbes ( this I doubt, very much). Any life form liable to grow on my cheese theory, may therefore by Earth generated contaminate ! ( What are the chances of this happening ? good I bet )
to be absurd, Kaptain Kirk, if the agar - cheese- is toxic, how do we know that the craft itself, its shadow, the coming through the atmosphere is not similarly disruptive ?
The fact is, to prove life on earth, we set out a medium upon which it thrives. We trap blood pathogens by taking a sample and seeing what grows.
///Why not set out a series of agar like plates, making a series of good guesses as we can, looking for any growth under sets of conditions we can control ? and then looking at it under a microscope ?? DUH This is a more direct, and logical way of going about "discovering" any life forms on the planet. Take a swab, and see what grows.
Again, we might find staph or other, from a technician finger print.

[Syndicate]

denn034: Probably sooner. We currently posses the technology for a positron beam. If we can develop a cheap anti proton source we could build anti matter engines. Which would be very useful in exploiting the resources of our solar system. Unfortunately anti matter engines and FTL are not synonymous. We still have a lot of work to do in theoretical physics before we get to go to other stars in a day trip.

hamiltongrad: You assume that Martian life is chemically compatible. Your cheese may actually be poison.

dmw1167: This is why I pay my taxes.

[rushlimpdrug]

Sooner than later, ships with anti-matter engines will make it possible to extract ice, oil, or what have you.
Posted by denn034 at 04:50 PM


Have you spoken to captain kirk
or captain krunch lately?

[denn034]

"Too bad, they can not take some that ice and pour themselves a well-earned drink."
Posted by BajaJohn1

Sooner than later, ships with anti-matter engines will make it possible to extract ice, oil, or what have you.

[denn034]

That could just be bedrock but, here''s hoping it''s ice.

[hamiltongrad]

While impressive in getting there, and landing there, the science once there seems "piece meal" and indirect. Are we being taken for a ride.

[barbaraf4]

"The only thing that melted away was taxpayers money. This is utter nonsense nothing can live on this planet according to all the information gathered so far. Some new technology has come from these missions, but who says they would not have been developed without spending billions of dollars on these missions. I think this is really an ego thing at taxpayers expense," Posted by dmw1167
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Excellent post!

[fstop100]

Marvin is going to get you!

[viscor]

I would like to congratulate the people who are using their critical thinking skills when suggesting that the %u201Cice%u201D might be solid CO2 (dry ice) rather than H2O ice. I love it when people think hard about alternative explanations and don%u2019t take things at face value. Well done!

Jim Finster, however, correctly points out that solid dry ice simply can%u2019t exist at the Phoenix Lander site given the temperature (and pressure). A quick look at a phase diagram will tell you that it%u2019s quite impossible for it to be CO2.

[hamiltongrad]

JPL - MY REFRIDGE is open for your inspection....

After a few weeks, the cheese in my refrig. has green stuff growing on it. Why not, send a piece of cheese, or bread, or fancy petri dish to Mars, and siMPLY see if anything grows. if it does, look at it.

DUH....

[hamiltongrad]

///life in MY FRIDGEDARE !!!!!????//////

Concerning life on Mars: It seems to me, why not just put a petri dish, or a piece of cheese out there and see if anything grows on it ??
I can tell that there is life in my refrigerator very easily by this observation.
It seems to me that they are going about this whole quest in a very piece meal fashion. Perhaps they are afraid of the results. Or perhaps they know that the space craft is probably carrying earth hearty microbes on it ! they would grow on agar or white bread left out !
I would have a whole varity of petri type dishes, under varied tempt. and lighting , and see what happens.
I don''t believe that JPL etc REAALLLY WANTS TO GET AN ANSWER for political / social/ religions reasons, of if they do, they are keeping the results of a simple experiment from the world. ARE WE SUCH IDIOTS ???

[jimfinster]

There is a lot of CO2 ice on Mars in the winter. However Phoenix landed in the Martian arctic during the summer (because it is solar powered). In the Martian summer it is much too hot for dry ice to be solid. It would be like trying to keep water ice from melting on a 140 degree day here on Earth.

[hawksprings]

nordeck,
That''s my point. Dry ice is a solid until it''s exposed to sunlight or a certain temp.
So it some dry ice is under the dirt, and the scoop uncovered it, when the sun hit it, it evaporated, just like Mars'' polar caps of PURE, SOLID CO2 shrink seasonally.
How do they know the stuff wasn''t CO2 and not water ice?

[nordeck52]

Question for the scientists:
Could this material that seems to have "melted" away actually be dry ice?
Isn''''t that what the polar caps on Mars are made of?
How do we know it''''s not dry ice instead of water ice?

Posted by HawkSprings at 05:09 PM : Jun 20, 2008


Because dry ice is solid carbon dioxide.

[sociald63]

ok - that''s great, but where are the little green men ??

[mrmazerati]

We should care about Mars because answering the question of life elsewhere clears up a lot of misunderstandings about life here. If we all become one human race in comparison to alien life elsewhere, the differences between ourselves will begin to disappear.

[bluestardad]

WHO CARES ABOUT MARS?

THIS REPORT IS A DISTRACTION!