Scientists were pretty sure that their latest robot explorer, the Phoenix Lander, would discover water ice on Mars, but there was still cause for rejoicing when the Phoenix's latest snapshots confirmed that they'd found it.
[T]o actually see the ice was “tremendously exciting,” [principle investigator Peter] Smith said. “One of the biggest fears I’ve had on the mission is that we’d dig and dig and never find anything” [The New York Times].
The breakthough came over the course of the week. On Sunday, the Phoenix used its robotic arm to enlarge a trench it had been digging in the Martian soil, and snapped pictures of small white chunks at the bottom of the pit. NASA scientists said the white material could be either ice or a form of salt, and that time would tell. Yesterday, when the Phoenix took new photos of the same trench, scientists saw that many of ...
