Did you know NASA currently has two rovers (Spirit rover and Opportunity rover) and one lander (Phoenix Spacecraft) on Mars.

The Phoenix spacecraft landed on Mars on the 25th May 2008 and recently beamed back images of a trench dug up by its Robotic Arm.

The colour images were acquired by NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander’s Surface Stereo Imager on the 21st and 25th days of the mission, or Sols 20 and 24 (June 15 and 19, 2008).

* A sol is a term used to refer to the duration of a solar day on Mars = 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds

These images show ice in the trench informally called “Dodo-Goldilocks” over the course of four days.
In the lower left corner of the left image, a group of lumps is visible. In the right image, the lumps have disappeared, similar to the process of evaporation.

To view more information regarding ice on Mars Click here

Other Interesting facts about Mars

The Spirit rover landed on Mars on the 4th January 2004 and it lasted 779 sols (This rover is no longer operation due to equipment failures, it can only be used to brush targets)

The Opportunity rover landed on Mars on the 25th January 2004 and is still functional however there is a lot of dust on its solar panels which is causing problems, it is also experiencing equipment failures.

Both Spirit and Opportunity took stunning photos of Mars.

Click the image to view a larger version.

To view more photos including high definition photos of Mars Click here

To read more about Mars Exploration missions Click here

Resources

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars

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