Berkeley CA (SPX) Jul 03, 2008 - A new analysis of martian soil data led by University of California, Berkeley, geoscientists suggests that there was once enough water in the planet's atmosphere for a light drizzle or dew to hit the ground, leaving tell-tale signs of its interaction with the planet's surface.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Jul 02, 2008 - NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander enlarged the Snow White trench and scraped up little piles of icy soil on Saturday, June 28, the 33rd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Scientists say that the scrapings are ideal for the lander's analytical instruments.
Esrange, Sweden (SPX) Jul 01, 2008 - At 7:07 local time on Saturday (28 June) a large balloon-borne experiment called MEAP(1) took off from SSC:s launch facility Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden. The aim of the flight is to perform tests of new techniques connected to the flight itself and to the new mass spectrometer planned to be used in the future on space flights to other planets.
Berkeley CA (SPX) Jul 01, 2008 - A new analysis of Martian soil data led by University of California, Berkeley, geoscientists suggests that there was once enough water in the planet's atmosphere for a light drizzle or dew to hit the ground, leaving tell-tale signs of its interaction with the planet's surface.
Berkeley CA (SPX) Jul 01, 2008 - A new analysis of Martian soil data led by University of California, Berkeley, geoscientists suggests that there was once enough water in the planet's atmosphere for a light drizzle or dew to hit the ground, leaving tell-tale signs of its interaction with the planet's surface.
Tucson AZ (SPX) Jun 30, 2008 - NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander scraped to icy soil in the Wonderland area on Thursday, June 26, confirming that surface soil, subsurface soil and icy soil can be sampled at a single trench.
Tucson AZ (SPX) Jun 27, 2008 - NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander placed a sample of Martian soil in the spacecraft's wet chemistry laboratory today for the first time. Results from that instrument, part of Phoenix's Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer, are expected to provide the first measurement of the acidity or alkalinity of the planet's soil.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Jun 27, 2008 - NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander performed its first wet chemistry on Martian soil flawlessly yesterday, returning a wealth of data that for Phoenix scientists was like winning the lottery.
Paris (AFP) June 25, 2008 - For nearly 30 years, space scientists have wrestled with one of the greatest enigmas in the Solar System: why does Mars have two faces? Pictures sent back by the US Viking landers in the late 1970s unveiled Mars's northern hemisphere as an enormous lowland basin, where -- or so it was suspected -- a mighty ocean may have raged. But Mars's southern hemisphere is abruptly, bizarrely different.
Corvallis OR (SPX) Jun 25, 2008 - A team of scientists from the United States and the United Kingdom has developed a technique using ultraviolet light to identify organic matter in soils that they say could be used to document the existence of life on Mars.
Moffet Field CA (SPX) Jun 24, 2008 - The Phoenix mission landed in the martian northern plains on May 25. Since then, the lander's robotic arm has scooped up soil and delivered it to the science instruments for testing. The hope is that Phoenix will discover organic molecules in the red soil - if it does, that improves the odds that life could exist on Mars.
Pasadena CA (SPX) Jun 23, 2008 - Scientists relishing confirmation of water ice near the surface beside NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander anticipate even bigger discoveries from the robotic mission in the weeks ahead.
Tucson AZ (JPL) Jun 23, 2008 - Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it.
Washington (AFP) Jun 20, 2008 - An information glitch aboard the Mars Phoenix lander has caused the loss of some non-essential images of the Red Planet and delayed the probe's work by 24 hours, NASA said Thursday.
Washington (AFP) June 20, 2008 - Scientists rejoiced Friday after the Phoenix Mars lander confirmed their long-held belief that ice is hiding under the surface in the Red Planet's northern region.
Tucson AZ (SPX) Jun 19, 2008 - NASA's Phoenix Mars Mission generated an unusually high volume of spacecraft housekeeping data on Tuesday causing the loss of some non-critical science data. Phoenix engineers are analyzing why this anomaly occurred.
