Godlike Productions - News: Phoenix takes highest-ever resolution image of Mars dust

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Saturday, August 30, 2008

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Phoenix takes highest-ever resolution image of Mars dust

Xinhua

2008-06-14

A microscope on NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander has taken images of dust and sand particles with the greatest resolution ever taken from another planet, NASA reported on Thursday.

The Optical Microscope onboard Phoenix observed particles that had fallen onto an exposed surface, revealing grains as small as one-tenth the diameter of a human hair.

"We have images showing the diversity of mineralogy on Mars at a scale that is unprecedented in planetary exploration," said Michael Hecht of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is one of the leading scientists on the Phoenix science team.

The particles show a range of shapes and colors. Some of the particles might have come from inside the spacecraft during the forceful events of landing on May 25, but many match expectations for Martian particles.

"It's a first quick look," Hecht said. "All the tools are working well. We will be using future observations of soil samples delivered by the Robotic Arm to confirm whether the types of particles in this dustfall sample are also seen in samples we can be certain are Martian in origin."

Meanwhile, Phoenix received commands Thursday to collect its first soil sample to be delivered to a laboratory instrument on the lander deck.

Commands for that same activity sent on Wednesday did not reach Phoenix because the orbiter intended for relaying the transmission, NASA's Mars Odyssey, had put itself into a safe standby mode shortly before the commands would have reached Odyssey.

Thursday's commands were relayed to Phoenix via NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The relay radio on that orbiter has been working well in recent days, after intermittently turning itself off last week.

Phoenix will continue to do relays via Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter until Odyssey returns to full functioning, and then Phoenix will use both orbiters.

"We think Odyssey went into safe mode because of a single event that affected computer memory," said NASA's Chad Edwards, chief telecommunications engineer for the JPL Mars Exploration Program. "Yesterday's safe mode event appears to be very similar to events that have caused Odyssey to go into safe mode two or three times earlier during its long operation around Mars." Odyssey has been orbiting Mars since 2001.

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