Cool News From NASA:Phoenix Verifies Water On Mars

TOPIC: water on Mars

Image: full-circle panorama in approximately true color, combining more than 400 images taken during the first several weeks after NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander arrived on the Martian artic plane. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University Arizona/Texas A&M University. See http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/images/press/15158.html for more details.

NASA's Phoenix spacecraft & Mars probe has confirmed the presence of ice in the polar soil:

NASA Spacecraft Confirms Martian Water, Mission Extended
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-20080731.html

The Mission News site at NASA.gov reports:

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Laboratory tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.

"We have water," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. "We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted."

Boyton went on to say that "From my standpoint, it tastes very fine." (Mars probe finds water. USA Today, 7/31/2008).

RELATED REFERENCES

Mars probe finds water (7/31/2008). USA Today, accessed 7/31/2008 at http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2008-07-31-mars-water_N.htm

NASA Spacecraft Confirms Martian Water, Mission Extended (7/31/2008). NASA website, accessed 7/31/2008 at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-20080731.html