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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Tucson AZ (SPX) Jun 19, 2008 - NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander began digging in an area called Wonderland early Tuesday, taking its first scoop of soil from a polygonal surface feature within the national park region that mission scientists have been preserving for science.
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 19, 2008 - Opportunity finally escaped the Martian sand and backed up onto solid rock inside Victoria Crater. Driving backward on Martian day, or sol, 1557 (June 10, 2008), the rover successfully moved the last of its six wheels up over a rocky ledge.
Tucson AZ (SPX) Jun 18, 2008 - One of the ovens on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander continued baking its first sample of Martian soil over the weekend, while the Robotic Arm dug deeper into the soil to learn more about white material first revealed on June 3.
Tucson AZ (SPX) Jun 16, 2008 - New observations from NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander provide the most magnified view ever seen of Martian soil, showing particles clumping together even at the smallest visible scale.
Washington (AFP) June 13, 2008 - About three weeks after it landed on Mars, the Phoenix lander has collected particles that offer a snapshot of millions of years of life on the Red Planet, the team behind the probe said Friday.
Tucson AZ (SPX) Jun 13, 2008 - NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander sprinkled a spoonful of Martian soil Wednesday onto the sample wheel of the spacecraft's robotic microscope station, images received early Thursday confirmed.
Chapel Hill NC (SPX) Jun 12, 2008 - Scientists looking for evidence of life on Mars have turned to technology invented by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers to help with their mission.
Tucson AZ (SPX) Jun 12, 2008 - NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has filled its first oven with artian soil. We have an oven full, Phoenix co-investigator Bill Boynton of the University of Arizona, Tucson, said. It took 10 seconds to fill the oven. The ground moved.
