Scientists were all smiles Wednesday after samples of Martian arctic soil finally dropped into the Phoenix lander's oven instrument, putting the search for signs of past life on Mars back on track.
The probe's robotic arm had dumped arctic dirt into one of its eight Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA) last Friday, but only a few particles from the clumpy soil in Mars' far north made it through a screen cover on the oven.
Scientists had run a vibrating mechanism, sometimes several times a day, to try to shake the soil through the screen and fall into the oven.
The team was surprised to find Wednesday that the soil finally filled the oven, which scientists hope will help uncover signs of the existence of water and life-supporting organic minerals on the Red Planet.
"We actually got a full oven," Bill Boynton, one the science team members, said in a teleconference with reporters. "When the oven started to fill it went from empty to full in just over one second."
"The problem is now behind us. And sometime in the next day or two, we will close the oven and actually start the analysis. So we are very, very pleased," he said. The analysis process will take about five days.
The oven, which can only be used once, is now ready to start baking the sample to vaporize water that constitutes ice, he said.
In subsequent days, the temperatures will rise to see minerals that decompose at different temperatures.
"When they do so they will give up water and CO2 that they might have reacted in the past and we can identify what minerals they are," Boynton said. "We are looking at evidence of past interactions with water."
Phoenix landed on the stark terrain of Mars' north pole region on May 25.
Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, who heads the science team, said the soil where the probe landed appears layered.
"Under the lander we can see that we broke through a very thin crust on the surface," Smith said. "The soil is definitely layered in a sense that there is a very tough surface crusted and underneath there is some looser soil."
"It's quite interesting and very unusual," he said.
The scientists are also still trying to confirm if a white layer seen in a trench that was dug by the lander's robotic arm is ice, he said.
"Clearly you can see that there are some white material exposed in the trench, and there is a debate that it might be a salty layer or an ice layer," Smith said.
The soil is crusty and tends to clump into little balls when dropped on a slopping metal surface like TEGA, he said. The soil is also sticky and stuck to the surface of the oven's metal surface, which is in a 45-degree angle.
The soil appears to contain chemical or electro-magnetic properties that make if very different that what has been found in other parts of Mars, Smith said.
"So we are quite interested in seeing the microscopic make up of the soil," he said.
The lander's microscope will allow scientists to look at the magnetic properties to examine the size distribution of the fine material, Smith said.
The first images from the microscope should reach Earth on Thursday, he said.
Mars Probe Ready to Bake: Discovery News : Discovery Channel
