File:PIA10741 Possible Ice Below Phoenix.jpg

Summary

View under Phoenix spacecraft showing ice that was uncovered by blast from landing rockets. The Robotic Arm Camera on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander captured this image underneath the lander on the fifth Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Descent thrusters on the bottom of the lander are visible at the top of the image. This view from the north side of the lander toward the southern leg shows smooth surfaces cleared from overlying soil by the rocket exhaust during landing. One exposed edge of the underlying material was seen in Sol 4 images, but the newer image reveals a greater extent of it. The abundance of excavated smooth and level surfaces adds evidence to a hypothesis that the underlying material is an ice table covered by a thin blanket of soil.^[1] The bright-looking surface material in the center, where the image is partly overexposed, may not be inherently brighter than the foreground material in shadow. Source: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA10741 Image credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Lab-Caltech/University of Arizona/Max Planck Institute

Licensing

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