Phoenix Mars Lander Discovers Ice, Scientists ThinkPhoenix Mars Lander Discovers Ice, Scientists Think

Scientists believe that NASA's Phoenix Lander has discovered ice on Mars.

Bright chunky material, photographed in a trench, has disappeared and scientists believe that means the bits were frozen and evaporated. "It must be ice," Phoenix said Principal Investigator Peter Smith, from the University of Arizona in Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that."

The lander continued digging another trench and appeared to hit a hard surface on Thursday. Scientists believe the hard material -- located at the same depth as the ice found in the other trench -- could be another layer of ice. They have labeled trenches "Snow White 1" and "Snow White 2" and informally referred to the place where they believe the ice evaporated as "Dodo Goldilocks."

Researchers already believed there was ice on Mars, but the lander is allowing them to view and analyze the terrain and its ingredients up close.

Also this week, software experts at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver worked on a patch to save more of the Phoenix' data. NASA said the team is downloading data at the end of each day because the spacecraft itself generated high volumes of duplicative file-maintenance data generated by its intricate mission.

"We now understand what happened, and we can fix it with a software patch," Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, said. "Our three-month schedule has 30 days of margin for contingencies like this, and we have used only one contingency day out of 24 sols (Martian days). The mission is well ahead of schedule. We are making excellent progress toward full mission success."