Phoenix Lander Has An Oven Full Of Martian Soil [oven filled w/soil scooped last Friday]

physorg.com ^ | 16:09 EST, <a href="http://archive.physorg.com/11/06/2008">June 11, 2008 </a> | unknown

[Mike Fieschko]

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's Surface Stereo Imager took this image on Sol 14 (June 8, 2008), the 14th Martian day after landing.

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has filled its first oven with Martian soil. "We have an oven full," Phoenix co-investigator Bill Boynton of the University of Arizona, Tucson, said today. "It took 10 seconds to fill the oven. The ground moved."

Boynton leads the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer instrument, or TEGA, for Phoenix. The instrument has eight separate tiny ovens to bake and sniff the soil to assess its volatile ingredients, such as water.

The lander's Robotic Arm delivered a partial scoopful of clumpy soil from a trench informally called "Baby Bear" to the number 4 oven on TEGA last Friday, June 6, which was 12 days after landing.

A screen covers each of TEGA's eight ovens. The screen is to prevent larger bits of soil from clogging the narrow port to each oven so that fine particles fill the oven cavity, which is no wider than a pencil lead. Each TEGA chute also has a whirligig mechanism that vibrates the screen to help shake small particles through.

Only a few particles got through when the screen on oven number 4 was vibrated on June 6, 8 and 9.
Boynton said that the oven might have filled because of the cumulative effects of all the vibrating, or because of changes in the soil's cohesiveness as it sat for days on the top of the screen.

"There's something very unusual about this soil, from a place on Mars we've never been before," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona. "We're interested in learning what sort of chemical and mineral activity has caused the particles to clump and stick together."

Plans prepared by the Phoenix team for the lander's activities on Thursday, June 12 include sprinkling Martian soil on the delivery port for the spacecraft's Optical Microscope and taking additional portions of a high-resolution color panorama of the lander's surroundings.

Source: NASA

[RightWhale]

Good!

[yobid]

Now tell it to drill for oil!

Ooops, wrong planet.

[Sax]

Martian mudpie! Order up!

[okie01]

Fingers cross, hoping that when the experiment is concluded, there is a unanimous shout of "Eureka!"

Finding water would be exciting as hell.

[fanfan]

The soil just fell in? All of a sudden?

Wouldn’t having it sit on the screen in the sun change it’s composition, at least as far as moisture is concerned?

[RightWhale]

They already have water. They are looking for organics. The oven will cook for a few days and then we shall see what comes up on the analyzer.

[PC99]

It’s not water - we know water is there. It’s organics. The two Viking landers found zero organics in soil in 1976, even less than the lifeless lunar regolith. No organics at a third site (and the only one with confirmed water), and the prospects for life keep diminishing.

[Mike Fieschko]

From the article:

Boynton said that the oven might have filled because of the cumulative effects of all the vibrating, or because of changes in the soil's cohesiveness as it sat for days on the top of the screen.

When the scooped soil didn't fall through the screen, I thought 'Maybe it's clumpy because it's too damp.'

[RandallFlagg]

Well, they’d just better leave it there where they found it and not even think about bringing it to Earth.

We all know what’d happen....

Zombies.

[RightWhale]

It is that same guy who comes by to clean the dust off the Rovers solar panels. He gave the lander a tap, and there it goes!

[mnehring]

How ironic if this is our first contact with intelligent life from another planet, and we scoop it up and cook it.

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

As soon as we find life on Mars, the RATS will call for taxation and voter registration on the red planet...

[shineon]

[TheWasteLand]

How ironic if this is our first contact with intelligent life from another planet, and we scoop it up and cook it.

That intelligent life would have to be dumb as dirt.

[Night Hides Not]

If only it could find the American flag that was left there...that would thrill Sheila Jackson-Lee.

[ZX12R]

We’ve learned that martian soil is clumpy? I hope there’s more.

[mplc5]

Check for dennis kookcinich DNA

[fanfan]

Rover Duster for President!

[blam]

"Well, they’d just better leave it there where they found it and not even think about bringing it to Earth."

"We all know what’d happen....

To late...they're pissed.

War Of The Worlds