The Phoenix lander on Mars has touched the soil and is getting ready to do some digging
Images from beneath the lander show spots of what appear to be bright consolidated surfaces, possibly sub-surface ice exposed by the lander
more on the "Snow Queen" feature
and the arm has made the first gentle scoop to see what is down there...
Not down to ice yet at this spot...
They also did a rather nice panorama composite image around the lander
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To stop this obnoxious flashing, just hit the ESC key! It's like gold, but better. It's ice! On Mars!
If there's ice, there is water. If there is water, there cold be life. Maybe.
I'm pretty sure the presence of H2O on Mars is not that surprising. But what are the chances of scooping up…
Phoenix has been digging shallow trenches on Mars, and hitting hard stuff, which is bright white - like maybe ice.
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This color image is a three dimensional (3D) view of a digital elevation map of a sample collected by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). The image shows four round pits, only 5 microns in depth, that were micromachined into the silicon substrate, which is the background…
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