Water founded on Mars

Phoenix Mars Lander of NASA has recently detected snow fall from Martian Clouds. Soil experiment by this spacecraft has detected interaction between minerals on Mars Surface and liquid water. This new discovery has again raised questions on the presence of water on Mars.

Discovery By Phoenix

This discovery was possible through a large instrument place on Phoenix, which gathers knowledge about the interaction between atmosphere and surface on Mars. This instrument detected that there is snow from clouds at about 4 Kilometers (2.5 miles) above the landing site of Phoenix. However data collected, shows that the snow vaporizing before reaching the surface.

According to Jim Whiteway (Professor of New York University and Lead scientist for the Canadian-supplied Meteorological Station on Phoenix), "It I the first time that such scene is viewed on Mars". Now the scientist are looking for the possibility that snow even reaches to Mars surface.

Other Major Discoveries

Experiment by Phoenix also yielded some other results, like Clues of Calcium Carbonate on Mars surface. Calcium Carbonate is a main composition of Chalk and most important thing is that formation of Calcium Carbonate is possible in the presence of liquid water only.
Peter Smith (Phoenix Principal Investigator of the University of Arizona, Tucson.) says, ""We are still collecting data and have lots of analysis ahead, but we are making good progress on the big questions we set out for ourselves."

Key Aim of Phoenix Mission

The main aim of mission is to find the possibilities of favorable environment on Mars for survival of life. Phoenix landed on Mars surface on May 25, and it has already confirmed that there is a hard subsurface layer at its far northern site which contains water-ice.

Evidence of calcium carbonate in soil samples from trenches dug by the Phoenix robotic arm comes from two laboratory instruments called the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer, or TEGA, and the wet chemistry laboratory of the Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer, or MECA.

This discovery is a next step in confirming presence of water on Mars surface.




Experiments by TEGA and MECA

Evidence of calcium carbonate in soil samples from mars has been found out by the high temperature carbon di-oxide release while experimenting from TEGA. This temperature at which carbon dioxide releases matches the temperature known to decompose calcium carbonate and release carbon dioxide.


The MECA evidence came from a buffering effect characteristic of calcium carbonate assessed in wet chemistry analysis of the soil. The measured concentration of calcium was exactly what would be expected for a solution buffered by calcium carbonate.


Mission Phoenix Extended

Originally Mission Phoenix was planned for three months duration, but its timeline has been extended and it is in its fifth month right now. But now it is facing decline in solar energy and it is expected that it will stop working before the end of 2008. Now the Phoenix team I trying to activate microphone on lander before power ceases.

Mission Lead and Responsibilities

The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith at the University of Arizona. Project management is handled by JPL with development partnership by Lockheed Martin in Denver. It is also getting international contributions Canadian Space Agency; University of Neuchatel, Switzerland;; Universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and Finnish Meteorological Institute, Finland.