Has Mars Phoenix hit water ice with it's thrusters?

Yesterday, interpretation of this photo from Mars by JPL scientists infers that the Mars Phoenix lander's hydrazine thrusters exposed more of the subsurface ice layer than the robotic arm ever could.

PHX lander photo shows possible water ice

According to JPL, as shown in this false color photo, the diamond shaped patterns along the Martian surface, where the Mars Phoenix lander touched down on Sunday, are similar to those found in Antarctica.

But it will take the Phoenox lander to dig and analyse the soil to prove it.

How Cool Is This ???

Another chunk of history was made during the landing of the Phoenix onto the planet Mars . At the left, is a photo from the HiRise Reconnaisance Satellite, which orbits Mars.

What did it photograph? Nothing short than the parachute descent of the Mars Phoenix lander.

It's the white spots in the photo.

Phoenix arrrives on mars & begins "shoegazing"

T-4 hrs to Mars. Press release from JPL.

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander sped on Sunday morning toward its arrival at Mars, as the tug of the Red Planet's gravity accelerated the craft during the final day of its trip from Earth to Mars. "Mars is literally pulling on our spacecraft, and at the same time it is pulling on our emotions," Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith, of the University of Arizona, Tucson, said early Sunday afternoon. "We are excited at how close we are right now to beginning our study of a site where Martian water ice will be within our reach, after all these years of preparations. Our science mission begins as the spacecraft settles into its new home on Mars." The spacecraft's speed relative to Mars increased from 6,300 miles per hour at 8:30 a.m. Pacific Time to 8,500 mph at 12:30 p.m., headed for a speed higher than 12,000 mph before reaching the top of the Martian atmosphere. Phoenix was on track for anticipated entry into the atmosphere at 4:30p.m. Pacific Time and reaching the surface at 4:38 p.m., although confirmation of those events comes no sooner than 15 minutes, 20 seconds later, due to the time needed for radio signals to travel from Mars to Earth. Mission controllers decided Saturday night and Sunday morning to forgo the last two opportunities for adjusting the spacecraft's trajectory. "We are so well on course that those adjustments were not necessary," said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The most challenging part of the entire mission, getting from the top of the atmosphere to a safe landing on three legs, still lies ahead. Internationally, only five of the 11 attempts to land a spacecraft on Mars have succeeded. The Phoenix mission is led by Smith, with project management at JPL. The development partnership is with Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions are from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; the Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

T minus Eight Hours & Change before...

Image: NASA

The End of the Beginning for the Phoenix Lander

The Martian lander Phoenix, the first American spacecraft to be run by an American university and not a government agency, has now entered the critical Entry Descent and Landing phase of the mission.

According to mission control at the University of Arizona, tomorrow afternoon, the craft will enter the thin Martian atmosphere, accelerate to approximately 13K mi/hr, decelerate and land in an area known as Region D; a 620 square mile area, 800 feet deep, located in the Scandia Calles region of Vastitus Borealis near the Martian North Pole.

We will have confirmation of landing during acquition of signal at 4:53 PDT.
NASA says the weather at Region D looks clear, with temperatures ranging from -110 to a daytime high of -28 F.

If all goes well, within 60 seconds of landing, the Mars Surface Operations phase begins and will end with the destruction of the lander during the winter, when the spacecraft will become encased in the expanding North Pole.

Hopefully, before Phoenix meets its icy end, its scientific instrument packages will relay to the science teams back on Earth whether Mars contains frozen water and any organic compounds under the surface.