Morgan BellPhoenix Mars Lander may have found ice!
June 2nd 2008 01:52
The Phoenix Mars Lander is about to find out with today's exciting news that there may be ice just inches below the dusty surface.
As you can see in the above image, there's a patch of bright, reflective material under the lander. We'll all assume it's ice, but NASA is a little more conservative. What if it's just the top of a buried alien bunker? We'd look pretty foolish then.
From the article:
""We were expecting to find ice within two to six inches of the surface," said Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, principal investigator for Phoenix. "The thrusters have excavated two to six inches and, sure enough, we see something that looks like ice. It's not impossible that it's something else, but our leading interpretation is ice.""
Ah, those conservative engineers. Just come out and say it! Snow Cones! Mr. Freeze! Ice, Ice Baby! We need this, if for no other reason than all the pop-culture references we can make about Mars.
If they do find bacteria in the ice, will things change? Will we feel a sense of excitement towards our Martian neighbors? If only we could just start the reactors and move over there, spending a little quality time to get to know our weird red planet brother.
And in case you haven't heard how difficult it was to get Phoenix to Mars, here's the video "Seven minutes of Terror"
Click here for a gallery of Phoenix's images
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Comment by wilsonpon
Bravo, at least we finally can approved a fact that Mars really have ice covering...
Comment by piero