Category: Mars

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This panorama mosaic of images was taken by the Surface Stereo Imager on board NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander. This mosaic documents the midnight sun during several days of the mission, from Sol 46, or the 46th day of the mission to Sol 56 (that would be to July 12 – 22, 2008 here on Earth.) The foreground and sky images were taken on Sol 54, when the lander pulled an all-nighter to coordinate work with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The solar images were taken between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., local solar time, on the different nights of the 11 sol period. During this period, the sun’s path got slightly lower over the northern horizon, causing the lack of smoothness to the curve. This pan captures the polar nature of the Phoenix mission in its similarity to time lapse pictures taken above the Arctic Circle on Earth.

The latest activities of the lander has brought it closer to analyzing a sample of icy soil in the TEGA oven.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Phoenix used its robotic arm to scrape the top of the hard layer in the trench called “Snow White.”

“We are monitoring changes between the scrapes,” said Doug Ming of NASA Johnson Space Center. “It appears that there is fairly rapid sublimation of some of the ice after scraping exposes fresh material, leaving a thin layer of soil particles that had been mixed with the ice. There’s a color change from darker to bluer to redder. We want to characterize that on Sol 58 to know what to expect when we scrape just before collecting the next sample.”

The science team is preparing to quickly collect a sample from the hard layer of Snow White and deliver it to one of the eight ovens of Phoenix’s Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA). Doors to the oven have been opened to receive the sample. TEGA will “bake and sniff” the samples to analyze the composition of the soil and ice.

On Wednesday the team also checked out the heater on TEGA is working properly, to verify that pressure sensors can be warmed enough to operate properly early in the Mars morning.

“For the next sample, we will be operating the instrument earlier in the morning than we have before,” said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for TEGA. “It will be almost the coldest part of the day, because we want to collect the sample cold and deliver it cold.”

On the day when Phoenix will deliver the next sample to TEGA, the team plans to have lander activities begin about three hours earlier than the usual start time of about 9 a.m. local solar time.

On Thursday, one set of imaging commands will check a northwestern portion of the horizon repeatedly during early afternoon to see whether any dust devils can be seen. This will be the first systematic check by Phoenix for dust devils. The Mars Rover Spirit was able to image sequences of dust devils in its location, south of Mars’ equator.

Original News Source: Phoenix News

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For the first time, the Phoenix lander stayed up all night. But there was no partying for the little lander, just hard work. Phoenix coordinated its schedule to work together with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to make joint observations to study Mars’ atmosphere. More on that in a minute, but the other big news from the Phoenix lander is that the doors to the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) oven successfully opened, and the device is now ready to accept a sample of icy soil. If you remember, way back in the beginning of the mission, on about Sol 8, the first time the science team relayed orders for the spring-loaded oven doors to open, the doors only opened partially and the team had to vibrate the oven to get the soil inside. But this time, the 10 cm (4 inch) doors stands wide open, and today Phoenix will perfect its techniques to quickly get the icy soil sample inside the oven before the ice sublimates.

Now, about those atmospheric observations: Phoenix used its weather station, stereo camera and conductivity probe to monitor changes in the lower atmosphere and ground surface at the same time MRO studied the atmosphere and ground from above. The orbiter flew repeatedly over Phoenix’s location last evening, so it was good timing for a coordinated effort.

“We are looking for patterns of movement and phase change,” said Michael Hecht, lead scientist for Phoenix’s Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer, which includes the lander’s fork-like thermal and conductivity probe. “The probe is working great. We see some changes in soil electrical properties, which may be related to water, but we’re still chewing on the data.”

The probe was inserted into the soil Sunday for more than 24 hours of measurements coordinated with the atmosphere observations. One goal is to watch for time-of-day changes such as whether some water alters from ice phase to vapor phase and enters the atmosphere from the soil.

The Phoenix team’s plans also include commanding the lander to conduct additional testing of the techniques for collecting a sample of icy soil. When the team is confident about the collecting method, it plans to use Phoenix’s robotic arm to deliver an icy sample to an oven of TEGA.

The team wants to make sure their techniques will quickly bring the soil into the oven, as it’s possible the oven will only work for one more test. The vibrating done to get the soil into the oven for the previous test caused a short circuit that may happen again the next time the oven is activated. The short could be fatal to the oven, but of course, we’re all still holding out hope for a better case scenario.

Original News Source: Phoenix News site

OK, everyone: get out your funky 3-D glasses for a whole new look at Mars! We’ve seen the smooth plains of Meridiani from Opportunity in 3-D; we’ve gazed upon the rocky terrain of Gusev Crater from Spirit in more than two dimensions. But now it’s time to feast your eyes on Mars’ arctic tundra as its never been seen before: in super frozen 3-D from the Phoenix lander! The image above shows a color, stereoscopic 3D view of the Martian surface near the lander, and is one of Phoenix’s workplaces called “Wonderland.” But wait! There’s more…..

This 3-D view is from an image acquired by Phoenix’s Surface Stereo Imager on Sol 33, the 33rd Martian day of the mission (June 28, 2008). Phoenix’s solar panel is seen in the bottom right corner of the image.

Here’s a close up view of where all the action has been taking place recently: the trench called “Snow White.” The hole to the left of the trench, seen in the upper left of the image, is informally called “Burned Alive. This image was taken on Sol 22, but recently, Phoenix has scooped and rasped the area in an effort to get “shaved ice” samples.

Here’s a great touchy-feely 3-D image (don’t you just want to reach out and touch that rock?) The largest rock seen in this image is called “Midgard.” The edge of Phoenix’s deck is seen in the bottom right corner of the image.

There’s lots more 3-D loveliness at the Phoenix Image Gallery. Have fun!

The Phoenix Mars Lander successfully used a rasp on the end of its robotic arm to drill into the frozen soil on Mar’s arctic tundra. This effort loosened the icy material, which was then scraped up and collected in the lander’s scoop. Images and data sent from Phoenix early today indicated the shaved material in the scoop had changed slightly over time during the hours after it was collected, which is a sign that the material includes water ice. Water ice sublimates, or evaporates on Mars surface because of the low surface pressure on the Red Planet. It can exist just under the surface, however, protected by the soil.

The motorized rasp — located on the back of the lander’s robotic arm scoop — made two distinct holes in a trench informally named “Snow White.” The material loosened by the rasp was collected in the scoop and documented by the Robotic Arm Camera. The activity was a test of the rasping method of gathering an icy sample, in preparation for using that method in coming days to collect a sample for analysis in an oven of Phoenix’s Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA).

“This was a trial that went really well,” said Richard Morris, a Phoenix science team member from NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston. “While the putative ice sublimed out of the shavings over several hours, this shows us there will be a good chance ice will remain in a sample for delivery” to Phoenix’s laboratory ovens.

The motorized rasp bit extends from the back of the scoop on the end of Phoenix’s 2.35-meter-long (7.7-foot-long) robotic arm. The tool works just a rasp for woodworking, which coarsely files or shaves material.

‘While Phoenix was in development, we added the rasp to the robotic arm design specifically to grind into very hard surface ice,’ said Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. ‘This is the exactly the situation we find we are facing on Mars, so we believe we have the right tool for the job. Honeybee Robotics in New York City did a heroic job of designing and delivering the rasp on a very short schedule.'”

The past few days, Phoenix used its robotic arm to clear the top layer of dirt from a trench it dug called Snow White. On Tuesday, Phoenix used the rasp to dig into two spots at the bottom of the trench.

Mission scientists have been working on techniques to quickly obtain the sample and then deliver it to the TEGA before too much ice has sublimated away. The TEGA test will “bake” the soil, releaseing gases present to help sciencists learn more about the ice’s composition.

Today, (Wednesday) Phoenix will be commanded to continue scraping and enlarging the “Snow White” trench and to conduct another series of rasp tests. The lander’s cameras will again be used to monitor the sample in the scoop after its collection.

Original News Source: Phoenix Press Release

It’s not that the Phoenix lander’s mission to Mars is over – not by a longshot. But Phoenix did stick a fork in it. The “fork” is a four-pronged thermal and electrical conductivity probe that Phoenix poked into the Martian soil for the first time. The probe tool can help the science team assess how easily heat and electricity move through the soil from one spike to another. These measurements can provide information about frozen or unfrozen water in the soil. The probe is mounted on the “knuckle” of Phoenix’s Robotic Arm. The probe has already been used for assessing water vapor in the atmosphere when it is held above the ground.

The image above is a series of six images, taken on July 8, 2008, during the Phoenix mission’s 43rd Martian day, or sol, since landing. The insertion visible from the shadows cast on the ground on that sol was a validation test of the procedure. The spikes on the probe are about 1.5 centimeters or half an inch long.

Phoenix also tried out another instrument: atomic force microscope. This Swiss-made microscope builds an image of the surface of a particle by sensing it with a sharp tip at the end of a spring, all micro- fabricated from a sliver of silicon. The sensor rides up and down following the contour of the surface, providing information about the target’s shape.

“The same day we first touched a target with the thermal and electrical conductivity probe, we first touched another target with a needle about threeorders of magnitude smaller — one of the tips of our atomic force microscope,”said Michael Hecht of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., lead
scientist for the suite of instruments on Phoenix that includes both the conductivity probe and the microscopy station.

The atomic force microscope can provide details of soil-particle shapes as small as about 100 nanometers, less than one-hundredth the width of a human hair. This is about 20 times smaller than what can be resolved with Phoenix’s opticalmicroscope, which has provided much higher-magnification imaging than anythingseen on Mars previously.

The team for the robotic arm is still working out the best way to get samples of ice from the trench dug earlier called “Snow White,” and be able to transfer the samples quickly into the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA) which heats samples and identifies vapors from them.

Scientists have yet to release any information about the second test from the Wet Chemistry Lab. They are still analyzing the results.

Original News Source: NASA’s Phoenix site