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Phoenix Digs First Mars Soil Sample To Analyze

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the sing-the-peter-gabriel-song dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Nearly two weeks after its historic landing, the US Mars probe Phoenix has scooped up its first sample of Martian soil and begun analyzing it for water and organic compounds. The test dig made Sunday by the Phoenix Mars Lander's 8-foot-long robotic arm uncovered bits of bright specks in the soil believed to be ice or salt. Mission controllers will send instructions to the lander to dump the sample into one of the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA) ovens. The TEGA ovens, which are about an inch long and the diameter of a pencil lead, will heat up the soil samples and use a mass spectrometer to detect the gases that come off the samples, which will shed light on some of the materials in the soil, specifically those formed by the process of liquid water."

3 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. Mod OP down. by goodmanj · · Score: 5, Informative

    *Sigh*. If you're going to use Slashdot to pimp your pointless tech blog, please at least make sure your information is up-to-date.

    Latest news: dirt seems to be stuck, possibly too cakey to enter test chamber. Engineers are working on a solution.

    Now where's *my* ten million site visits?

  2. Re:dig down further by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Those bacteria in greenland were what, 2 miles into the ice? They're gonna need a longer digging arm.
    There are bacteria on the top too. You just didn't hear about it, because it's obvious there are bacteria on the top. Finding them deep in the ice was news.
  3. A Better Update... by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Informative

    Rather than complain about stale stories, link to newer ones. You may even get modpoints for it. Anyhow, here's the best update I've found so far:

    http://planetary.org/blog/article/00001501

    They are having problems getting the soil to go through the screen. Although one of the pod doors (insert HAL jokes) didn't open all the way, the soil appears to have reached the screen based on the images. They dumped an extra-large load to compensate for the jammed door. The problem is that the sensors did not detect any soil going through the screen. They are now trying to figure out if its the nature of the soil (clumpy?) or an instrument problem.

    If its an instrument failure, fortunately they have 7 other "ovens" to try. Redundancy is nice.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.