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A quick update on the status of the Phoenix Lander which landed on Mars May 25th, 2008. While it feels like scientists have found water on Mars 4 or 5 times now, it is officially official: Mars has water! Watch on for not only a Phoenix Lander update but also the debut of Cariann in the daily episodes!

This story was submitted to us by SpaceVidcaster Gooey.

The Phoenix lander has tasted Martian water for the first time. By melting icy soil in one of its lab instruments, the robot confirmed the presence of frozen water lurking below the Martian permafrost. Until now, evidence of ice in Mars’ north pole region has been largely circumstantial. In 2002, the orbiting Odyssey spacecraft spied what looked to be a reservoir of buried ice. But it wasn’t until the Phoenix landed on May 25 of this year for a three-month hunt to determine if Mars has or can support life that it found what looked like ice in a hard patch underneath its very own landing site. Scientists noticed small changes in a trench possibly indicating that something in the soil had turned to gas when exposed to the sun. We all soon received confirmation that the soil did in fact contain frozen water.

This ice confirmation was, of course, accidental. After two failed attempts to deliver ice-rich soil to one of Phoenix’s eight lab ovens, researchers decided to collect pure soil instead. Surprisingly, the samples taken were, shall we say on the rocks.

Researchers were able to prove the soil had ice in it because when it melted in the oven at 32 degrees Fahrenheit it also released water molecules. Plans called for baking the soil at even higher temperatures next week to sniff for carbon-based compounds.

The latest scientific finding is the first piece of good news for a mission that has been dogged by difficulties in recent weeks.

An electrical short on one of Phoenix’s test ovens threatened the instrument, but scientists said the problem has not recurred. The lander, which spent the past several weeks drilling into the hard ice, also had trouble delivering ice shavings into an oven until now.

NASA announced that it would extend the mission for an extra two months until the end of September, adding $2 million more to the $420 million price tag,

Unlike the twin rovers roaming near the Martian equator, Phoenix’s lifetime cannot be extended much more because it likely won’t have enough power to survive the Martian winter.

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Tags: H2O, Mars, NASA, Phoenix, spacevidcast, Water

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 2:25 am and is filed under Daily Update. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.