[X] My Assistant

[ElkGroveDan]

Dan, I think you've mistaken a part of sunlit soil in Phil's image as white stuff.

Agreed.

[ugordan]

Here's a flicker between sol 21 and 24 showing change (or, rather, lack of):


Ignore the color of the brightest part of the white stuff, it's overexposed. The small white chunk in sol 21 image appears to disappear in sol 24 (inset).

[ElkGroveDan]

It's probably time to start looking for evidence of rust on the footpads...

[CryptoEngineer]

It's probably time to start looking for evidence of rust on the footpads...

Very early after landing Phoenix took a look under the craft,
showing exposed bright material where the landing jets had blown
the sand away.

It would be interesting to revisit this area and see if there have
been any visible changes. This 'bright stuff' has been exposed
for much longer than any in the trenches.

ce

[curious]

Very early after landing Phoenix took a look under the craft,
showing exposed bright material where the landing jets had blown
the sand away.

It would be interesting to revisit this area and see if there have
been any visible changes. This 'bright stuff' has been exposed
for much longer than any in the trenches.

ce

Sorry for barging in, just a quick comment then I'll slink away to lurk-mode again.

These mission scientists are circumspect and they won't state things until they have absolute proof, and that's good. But:

As soon as we saw what got exposed by the rockets it was instantly obvious that anywhere they dug they would find more ice. By the flat heterogeneous landscape it's true for miles around. Phoenix is sitting on a frozen f'ing lake bed. Orbital data already says there is a vast amount of water ice underneath.

Other things that strike me as just 'obvious:'

They are digging these trenches side by side to make a clean workspace for going as deep as they can reach without surface material cascading into it, so as to get purer ice samples.

At this latitude the 'surface,' the depth to which sublimation happens at this time of year, is ideal. It's an awesome location for this experiment. They nailed it, absolutely perfectly.

But the real shock is yet to come, if it does: That will be if/when they detect amino acids in the ice makeup. On that discovery, they will be very, very circumspect - as they should be.

Very exciting times, it's truly historic. Water ice up close is unprecedented.

Thanks for this forum and to all who post, it's a terrific read. You do a superb job of getting down to details, which is why someone 'stating the obvious' is just a bandwidth-waster on one level, but is hopefully also perspective provoking and encouraging. Cheers

[TheChemist]

But the real shock is yet to come, if it does: That will be if/when they detect amino acids in the ice makeup. On that discovery, they will be very, very circumspect - as they should be.

Aminoacids ??? I would not bet on it.
Phoenix is not equipped to detect organics, let alone find their structure.
The wet chemistry lab experiments will look for inorganics and oxidants, if I remember well.