Photo attribution: By NASA/JPL [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
By NASA/JPL-Caltech [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
We accessed NASA’s above photographs and write-up below to depict some of the soil types so far photographed on MARS.
NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander’s Surface Stereo Imager took this image on Sol 14 (June 8, 2008), the 14th Martian day after landing. It shows two trenches dug by Phoenix’s Robotic Arm.
Soil from the right trench, informally called “Baby Bear,” was delivered to Phoenix’s Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA, on Sol 12 (June 6). The following several sols included repeated attempts to shake the screen over TEGA’s oven number 4 to get fine soil particles through the screen and into the oven for analysis.
The trench on the left is informally called “Dodo” and was dug as a test.Each of the trenches is about 9 centimeters (3 inches) wide. This view is presented in approximately true color by combining separate exposures taken through different filters of the Surface Stereo Imager.
