Phoenix Works Wonders on Mars
“We’re a little surprised at how much this material is clumping together when we dig into it,” said Doug Ming a Phoenix science team member from NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston.
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A new revision of delivering soil samples to the Phoenix laboratory instruments has been done by the Arizona University engineers, while operating on the Robotic Arm on the Phoenix Mars Lander. Somewhat of a surprise to the engineers is the type of soil on Mars, with its physical properties making itself a challenge in order to get a sample for the TEGA, intended to pass the soil over a delivery opening.
The analyzer of the TEGA, designed to bake and sniff samples in order to detect key ingredients of the Martian soil, worked about twenty minutes on Sunday but not enough soil was entering the tiny oven below due to the clumping soil. “We are going to try vibrating it one more time, and if that doesn’t work, it is likely we will use our new, revised delivery method on another thermal analyzer cell,” said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the instrument.
Monday plans for detection involved a “sprinkling technique” which used a small amount of Sunday’s soil samples, which were gathered with the Robotic Arm for the Optical Microscope. If the findings are successful, later on this week another plan is to sprinkle material from the same scoopful onto the Phoenix microscope. The soil is considered unique because previously the soil on Mars has been considered as “fine dust” not heavy clumpy soil.
In 1976, the Viking lands showed that the red fine soil on Mars covered the planet, similar in composition to atmospheric dust. The soil contained silicon, iron, aluminum, magnesium, calcium, titanium, sulphur, and chlorine on elemental proportions. Lacking organic matter, the soil showed strong oxidizing activity.
The Mars exploration rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have found evidence for formations of water-modified weathered rocks that contain jarosite—a mineral found in aqueous environments found to be highly acidic sulfate solutions. On Earth, this type of soil is found near mine spills and in soils that have acid sulfate.
This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 1:15 am and is filed under Mission Objectives, Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
