Phoenix spacecraft finds ice on Mars

If you haven’t heard by now, the Phoenix Mars spacecraft has found ice at its landing location. The ice is believed to have vaporized after being unearthed by the Phoenix spacecraft upon landing. This means that the ice never went into a liquid state from a solid — it simply just became a gas.

Dice-size crumbs of 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.

“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 chunks were left at the bottom of a trench informally called “Dodo-Goldilocks” when Phoenix’s Robotic Arm enlarged that trench on June 15, during the 20th Martian day, or sol, since landing. Several were gone when Phoenix looked at the trench early today, on Sol 24.

Check out some more images of the trench with ice here.

And in a related post, The Big Picture is showcasing some beautiful Mars atmosphere imagery. Definitely worth taking a look at. Oh yeah, and here’s the live weather from Mars.