Thursday, July 31, 2008

NASA Confirms Water on Mars

Its official, NASA has confirmed through testing on the Phoenix Mars Lander. The idea of water outside of earth is nothing spectacular with comets as well as various moons and planets with water. This is the first time that a sample of water was actually tested on Mars. There are no sensors on board the Phoenix Mars Lander that can directly test for life, so the answer to that question has to wait for a future mission.


NASA
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-20080731.html

"Laboratory tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.

"We have water," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. "We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted."
"


For more info on the Phoenix Mars Lander, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix

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