Is this Ice?

Does this look like ice to you? It's the new scoop of dirt from the Phoenix lander. This very well could be the first color ice picture from the Red Planet. Check out the white substance to the right; definitely looks like ice chips to me, but there is a possibility it is salt.

Exciting times for Mars enthusiasts indeed! I am glued to my computer and NASA TV non-stop around 2-3pm, waiting for the latest news updates.

Come on... let's find a Martian microbe... now THAT would make the 11 o'clock news!

Hacker Shuts Down Phoenix Lander Website

Overnight, a hacker got into the Mars Phoenix Lander at the University of Arizona and changed the mission page to his signature with a link pointing to some overseas website.

This kind of behavior is totally unacceptable. This website is very popular now, and is providing us with the most up to date information about the Phoenix lander findings. If you remember correctly, the last update was that there may be a possibility of water-ice just barely under the surface of the retrorocket blast zone. I don't know about anyone else, but I have been feverishly checking the mission page to see if that was in fact water-ice or just rock. However, some foreign moron hacked the page, robbing the whole world of real-time mission data we've come to expect.

Hackers like this are just total scum. The thing that makes me mad is that if you are smart enough to hack a website like this, you should at least be smart enough to understand what it's trying to do. And why did you do it? For emails? Spam? Porn advertisements? Come on now, I know you're better than that Mr. Hacker

Phoenix's Retrorockets Unveil Possible Ice

Today's news release from the Phoenix lander is very exciting: in the retrorocket blast zone, near a footpad, scientists believe there may be water-ice chunks uncovered by the blast.

This is quicker than anyone could have imagined and very exciting. The only problem right now is that the image sent back was in black and white, which all CCD cameras inherently are, and we won't have a color image until probably tomorrow after the color is added.

Phil Plait at the Bad Astronomy blog has a great article about why CCD cameras take pictures in bacl and white, and how we essentially "trick" them into creating highly detailed color pictures.

I'm very excited about the possibility of water-ice that close to the surface. I thought the lander would find ice, just not so close to the surface. Perhaps if there's an ice layer, there's liquid water below. And who knows what that could mean. Why water? Phoenix says it best. (Space Science teachers, that links a freebie; use it!)

The digging arm will dig very slowly over the next couple of months, carefully analyzing each bit of soil as it goes ever deeper. We've barely just scratched the surface and already the discoveries are fascinating.

Coolest Landing Pic Ever

Want to see your tax dollars at work? Nothing says it better than the breath-taking oblique angle photograph of the Phoenix lander, it's parachute, and its parachute lines descending into (actually past) the "Heimdall" crater!

A satellite we launched 42 million (give or take a few million) miles to orbit the planet takes a photograph of the entrance of another spacecraft we send to check for samples.

Your viewing the first ever photograph of a spacecraft landing on another world taken by a camera not attached to it.

This is history. Now Phoenix... find us some water, and some life!

EDIT: Changed post title. Yeah, I totally copied the title of Bad Astronomy blog's post. Sorry. It REALLY wasn't intentional.