Well, OK, that's a stretch, but there is water, according to the latest Phoenix results:
"We've now finally touched it and tasted it," William V. Boynton, a professor at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona and the lead scientist for the instrument that detected the water, said at a news conference on Thursday. "And I'd like to say, from my standpoint, it tastes very fine."
No word yet on whether they've managed to figure out how to turn on the alien atmosphere-generating machine. That'll probably have to wait for the next mission.
Update: Here's a bonus link to the NOVA ScienceNow piece on Phoenix that aired the other night. Via Phoenix Lander on Facebook, of all things...
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And this is the resulting divot::
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's Surface Stereo Imager took this image on Sol 14 (June 8, 2008), the 14th Martian day after landing. It shows two trenches dug by Phoenix's Robotic Arm.
Soil from the right trench, informally called "Baby Bear," was delivered to Phoenix'…
Every few minutes I get an email from NASA telling me which button they've pressed on the Phoenix Robot, recently landed on Mars. And I'm only slightly exaggerating. OK, I'm exaggerating a lot.
The latest: Phoenix has been commanded to move its arm:
Scientists leading NASA's Phoenix Mars…
This:
Is a picture of Phoenix landing on Mars, taken from above.
One always wonders where the camera operator is during these things....
PASADENA, Calif. -- A telescopic camera in orbit around Mars caught a view of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suspended from its parachute during the lander's…
"The achievements of Apollo were so bold and our subsequent efforts so timid that the energy of those years seems like a youthful dream." -Buzz Aldrin
43 years ago today, humanity took our first steps on another world, venturing nearly 400,000 kilometers from home and walking on the surface of the…
Phoenix is a disaster. Engineering was done by a chimp, results are specious; the horror will mercifully freeze to death before its PERT chart is half exhausted. "NASA TAKES PICTURES!"
Mars is Nunavut without alcoholism.
+10 for the Matthew Sweet reference.
I am curious. Since nitrogen is almost always in the form of a diatomic gas, where is the N2 on Venus or Mars? Can anybody explain the nearly complete lack of it?