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Phoenix Mars Lander Hits Halfway Point
It doesn't come easy writes "There is a nice write-up over at Space.com about Phoenix, NASA's next Mars lander. The article includes a few more details about the steps NASA is taking to ensure a successful mission." The Phoenix project was first given the green light earlier this year and hopes to benefit from some hard lessons learned on earlier projects.
Some water on the surface of mars has been already detected. However, whether it be frozen or liquid, the search water beneath the regolith is the single most important priority for any manned exploration of our celestial neighbor. Any water present in subsurface acquifers would open the floodgates for progress on mars. It would: provide for human habitation, be a veritable hotbed for xenobiology, and provide the chemical components for fuel cells and even rocket propellant. Our generation needs something exciting as motivation..cross your fingers.
It sublimes, which means that it goes directly from a solid to a gas.
This is more to do with pressure than temperature-it doesn't mean the ice is melting becasue it's 200 kelvin or anything.