Phoenix on Mars - Page 19

JonClarke · #**541** (**permalink**) 16-August-2008, 12:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Procyan

Hope I didn't over do it. Image down to about 28 k now! Yes it is identical to lyophilization.

starting at bottom left is tap water, our water is known to be high in calcium scale. the others are labled. I did note that the 10 % sample froze solidly initially at -30 C, but started to melt when I applied shelf heat. I incremented the heat up slowly to 30 C. It seemed to melt about 8 C and then refroze as it boiled. I waited about 30 min. then incremented up to 30 C.

I wanted to show how the pure water ice separates from the high salt ice. To me the interesting sample is the high salt one. Both it and the 1 percent sample showed pockmarked surfaces as they dried.

Also, in a separate experiement I froze a sample of saturated brine under vacuum to -30 C. I released the vacuum and dropped it on the countertop and a about 20 percent of thevolume spilled out of the interior as liquid. The rest stayed frozen for a time. Brines on Mars could be interesting.

I used a black marker to darken 1/2 the bottom of the sample pans

Thanks, most interesting. Blackening the bottom is an excellent idea. Your tap water looks evil! Is it very hard? Do you live in a limestone area?

Note that 0.1% NaCl = 1000 ppm = the stated salinity of the first MECA wet chemistry cell.

Jon

Procyan · #**542** (**permalink**) 16-August-2008, 12:57 AM

Thanks! Yes the water is not too delightful to drink. And true the area is rich in limestone.

I wanted to simulate that 1000 PPM in case that was an accurate no. It is so faint against even the black background that it may not show up amidst the clay red soil.

John Jones · #**543** (**permalink**) 16-August-2008, 01:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Procyan

Hope I didn't over do it. Image down to about 28 k now! Yes it is identical to lyophilization.

starting at bottom left is tap water, our water is known to be high in calcium scale. the others are labled. I did note that the 10 % sample froze solidly initially at -30 C, but started to melt when I applied shelf heat. I incremented the heat up slowly to 30 C. It seemed to melt about 8 C and then refroze as it boiled. I waited about 30 min. then incremented up to 30 C.

I wanted to show how the pure water ice separates from the high salt ice. To me the interesting sample is the high salt one. Both it and the 1 percent sample showed pockmarked surfaces as they dried.

Also, in a separate experiement I froze a sample of saturated brine under vacuum to -30 C. I released the vacuum and dropped it on the countertop and a about 20 percent of thevolume spilled out of the interior as liquid. The rest stayed frozen for a time. Brines on Mars could be interesting.

I used a black marker to darken 1/2 the bottom of the sample pans

Interesting, but I don't know what to make of it. I'm one of those organic chemists.

Procyan · #**544** (**permalink**) 16-August-2008, 01:19 AM

Well, there's carbonate in the crust on the tap.

Thats not got much carbon in it!

JonClarke · #**545** (**permalink**) 16-August-2008, 11:32 AM

Can you measure the pH of your water?

Jon

RGClark · #**546** (**permalink**) 16-August-2008, 03:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RGClark

Review of the controversy about the sensitivity of the Viking GCMS sent to Mars to detect organic molecules:

Secrets of the martian soil.
Corinna Wu
Nature, 16 Aug 2007, p 742-744 v 448.
"Navarro-González was inspired to revisit the Viking tests for organic molecules after the exploratory rover Opportunity discovered jarosite, a hydrated iron sulphate that forms in the presence of water, on Mars in 2004. Studying jarosite-containing soils in the Rio Tinto area of Spain he found that getting organic material out using chemical approaches was relatively easy — but getting it out just by heating was not. “When I repeated the Viking experiments, “ he says, “I was surprised to see that despite the huge amount of organic matter present, there was virtually no detection of organics in the sediments. This was quite strange.” Independently, McKay had been doing research on soils from the Atacama desert in Chile, and had also started to suspect that the Viking experiments weren’t telling the whole story. Alison Skelley, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, had asked McKay to review a paper on a device she had developed for detecting amino acids in soil3.
McKay found the paper striking. “It found that there were a thousand times more amino acids released by chemical extraction than pyrolysis” — the heating method used by the Viking experiments. Then McKay says, “Within a month, Rafael told me about his puzzling result with the jarosite. That’s when I suggested that we ought to see if this effect was widespread.”"
...
"Heated debate."
"Navarro-González and McKay think that during the heating step of the Viking experiment, any organics given off at moderate temperatures would have been turned into CO2 before they reached the GC-MS, thanks to catalytic iron compounds in the Martian soil. “We suggest that a small portion [of the carbon dioxide seen by the Viking experiments] could have resulted from the oxidation of organics,” says Navarro-González. “Even if it’s just a small percentage, this could mean levels of organics on the surface of Mars a thousand times higher than expected.”"
http://www.mediabistro.com/portfolio...Ee4129Gees.pdf

Here's the paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences where these conclusions on the possible insensitivity of GCMS type instruments were presented:

The limitations on organic detection in Mars-like soils by thermal volatilization-gas chromatography-MS and their implications for the Viking results.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, October 31, 2006 vol.
103 no. 44 16089-16094
"The failure of Viking Lander thermal volatilization (TV) (without or with thermal degradation)-gas chromatography (GC)-MS experiments to detect organics suggests chemical rather than biological interpretations for the reactivity of the martian soil. Here, we report that TV-GC-MS may be blind to low levels of organics on Mars. A comparison between TV-GC-MS and total organics has been conducted for a variety of Mars analog soils. In the Antarctic Dry Valleys and the Atacama and Libyan Deserts we find 10-90 ìg of refractory or graphitic carbon per gram of soil, which would have been undetectable by the Viking TV-GC-MS. In iron-containing soils (jarosites from Rio Tinto and Panoche Valley) and the Mars simulant (palogonite), oxidation of the organic material to carbon dioxide (CO2) by iron oxides and/or their salts drastically attenuates the detection of organics. The release of 50-700 ppm of CO2 by TV-GC-MS in the Viking analysis may indicate that an oxidation of
organic material took place. Therefore, the martian surface could have several orders of magnitude more organics than the stated Viking detection limit.
Because of the simplicity of sample handling, TV-GC-MS is still considered the standard method for organic detection on future Mars missions. We suggest that the design of future organic instruments for Mars should include other methods to be able to detect extinct and/or extant life."
http://www.pnas.org/content/103/44/16089.full

Two things are very notable here: first, that iron-containing minerals of the type shown to exist on Mars would have made the GCMS sensitivity even worse, and second, rather surprisingly, the amounts of CO2 released on heating in the Viking GCMS might actually have
indicated that organics were present since this is the same response observed in samples with organics on Earth that had the type of iron minerals the MER rovers proved to exist on Mars.

Bob Clark

Procyan · #**547** (**permalink**) 16-August-2008, 05:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JonClarke

Can you measure the pH of your water?

Jon

Cold tap water pH = 7.46 to 7.50 consistently.

Regarding Jarosite binding organics... I just can't resist... We chemists always explain that as either hydrophobic, electrostatic or some combination of the two. If it gets desperate then its Van Der Waals.

But here again, would be so interesting to grind up a Jarosite sample, put into a dialysis cell and measure the partitioning of selected amino, nucleic acids, all the usual subjects. I assume the theory is that the organics became sequestered onto Jarosite during some wet period, right?

Seriously, briney water would most certainly drive hydrophobic interactions. We could even work out a good protocol to release them before the char-broil effect sets in.

When Phoenix looks for organics, does it just want to tick the box or can it distinquish say amino acids from nucleic acids etc.

01101001 · #**548** (**permalink**) 16-August-2008, 05:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Procyan

When Phoenix looks for organics, does it just want to tick the box or can it distinquish say amino acids from nucleic acids etc.

NASA Ames Research News: NASA's Phoenix to Seek Organics in Mars' Ice to Unravel Red Planet's Mysteries

Quote:

"We can identify organic material, but we won't be able to determine if it is biological," said McKay. The organic material could be biological, or it could be meteoritic – delivered by meteors from space, according to McKay.

"What I hope will happen is we'll get to the ice and scrape up a little piece of it, put it in the TEGA oven, and we'll find that it is rich in organics," McKay said. "It would mean that the ice is the place to find organics. Phoenix will be the test." The subsurface layers of ice, originally indicated by sensors on the Mars Odyssey spacecraft and recently imaged by the MARSIS radar on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft, could be an organic-rich, frozen soup, according to McKay.

Speaking about the significance of finding organics in Mars' polar ice, McKay said scientists would not know from the Phoenix mission how the organics were formed. "We'll know that they're there, and that's pretty exciting," he said.

NPR: 'Phoenix' Lander Set for Red Planet Exploration

Quote:

"[TEGA] is basically an oven, which cooks the surface soils and ice to the point where they release the gasses that are trapped inside of them and we can measure the types of gasses that are inside," Smith says. "This releases carbonates, sulfates, all different kinds of minerals. But also, we can detect organic materials. We can't tell whether it's DNA or protein, but we can tell if it's complex organics."

===

Link farm:
NASA Phoenix Mission
University of Arizona Phoenix Mars Mission
University of Arizona Phoenix Mars Mission: Lander Gallery
JPL Phoenix Mission News
NASA Phoenix Twitter Feed
NASA Phoenix Multimedia
CSA Phoenix Mars Mission
Planetary Society: Phoenix Mission
Planetary Society: Phoenix Non-SSI Raw Images
Planetary Society: Phoenix Sol-By-Sol Summary
Planetary Society: Weblog
Emily Lakdawalla Ustream video chat (Wednesdays)
Texas A&M University Phoenix SSI Raw Images Directory
Unmanned Spaceflight Forum: Phoenix 2007/8
Google Mars landing site
NASA TV (or NASA TV Yahoo! source or high-resolution)
NASA TV Media Channel

John Jones · #**549** (**permalink**) 16-August-2008, 05:31 PM

They haven't detected any organics have they? Or have they even looked yet?

01101001 · #**550** (**permalink**) 16-August-2008, 05:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Jones

They haven't detected any organics have they? Or have they even looked yet?

They haven't reported any.

Aviation Week: Fast-Track Phoenix Mars Ice Test (July 3)

Quote:

The initial TEGA test was of Martian soil that, although showing no organics, did offer encouraging water vapor data. No organics were expected in the first soil test, since the sample came from a surface layer exposed to the Sun and ultraviolet radiation that would eventually erase organics.

Still haven't reported any since the first bake.

They also haven't resorted to sampling the organic-free blank on deck, so they seem not yet to need to eliminate evidence of organic contamination from Earth.

Procyan · #**551** (**permalink**) 16-August-2008, 08:15 PM

You guys are the experts, but it seems to me they're buttering both sides of the bagel. To my understanding cosmic, non-biogenic organics are hydrophobic. I'm referring to tholins, PAHs, alkanes etc. They will definitely not be found in Martian ice unless there are some pretty fancy detergents mixed in too.

On the flip side, highly water soluble organic molecules are generally biogenic. I know there are abiotic amino acids found in space and in chondrites but its a question of concentration. If Phoenix found a preponderance of the organics in the ice and it was more than a few sigma above the detection limit, would that not point towards a biological origin? I'm asking... not professing a grand theory.

John Jones · #**552** (**permalink**) 16-August-2008, 08:22 PM

I would think so.

01101001 · #**553** (**permalink**) 17-August-2008, 03:29 AM

Sol 81. Raw Images. 30 minutes ago. Began arriving. 9 so far.

01101001 · #**554** (**permalink**) 17-August-2008, 03:36 AM

Brr. We've got frost.

University of Arizona press release: Phoenix Camera Sees Morning Frost at the Landing Site (August 16)

(Larger image)

Quote:

Water frost appears in an image the SSI took on Aug. 14, 2008, at 6 a.m. local Mars time on Sol 79, the 79th Martian day after landing. The frost begins to disappear shortly after 6 a.m. as the sun rises on the landing site.

The sun was about 22 degrees above the horizon when SSI took the image. Light at that oblique angle enhanced the detail of the polygons, troughs and rocks in the surrounding terrain.

RGClark · #**555** (**permalink**) 17-August-2008, 06:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Procyan

You guys are the experts, but it seems to me they're buttering both sides of the bagel. To my understanding cosmic, non-biogenic organics are hydrophobic. I'm referring to tholins, PAHs, alkanes etc. They will definitely not be found in Martian ice unless there are some pretty fancy detergents mixed in too.

On the flip side, highly water soluble organic molecules are generally biogenic. I know there are abiotic amino acids found in space and in chondrites but its a question of concentration. If Phoenix found a preponderance of the organics in the ice and it was more than a few sigma above the detection limit, would that not point towards a biological origin? I'm asking... not professing a grand theory.

Thanks for that info, Procyan. BTW, you may want to read that paper on the sensitivity of the GCMS in detail:

The limitations on organic detection in Mars-like soils by thermal volatilization-gas chromatography-MS and their implications for the Viking results.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, October 31, 2006 vol.
103 no. 44 16089-16094
http://www.pnas.org/content/103/44/16089.full

Quite key here are those iron containing compounds proven to exist on Mars that were shown to catalyze the decomposition of organics to CO2.

Note then that water vapor and CO2 were evolved at high temperatures on the first Phoenix TEGA sample, the "dry" one:

NASA Phoenix Media Telecon - June 26.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ph...-20080626.html

Organic molecules were not specifically detected but again this could be due to the organics decomposing to CO2.
Because of the known decomposing effects of the Mars iron compounds on organics, perhaps some ways need to be explored where this effect could be mitigated in the current TEGA instrument. For instance, estimated amounts of ice in soil in the north polar region from orbital observations could be 25% and above. Perhaps if a high ice containing sample is successfully delivered to TEGA, we could heat the soil first only to the level that would allow this water to remain liquid. Then perhaps the iron compounds would become oxidized and this would reduce the oxidizing effects of the iron compounds on the organics. This might be helped by free oxygen that was found to be evolved in one of the TEGA samples. Or perhaps the iron compounds would dissolve in water after a sufficiently long period of time.
Then after the iron-compounds were oxidized or decomposed, the temperatures would be raised to the level to volatilize the organics and detect them then.

Bob Clark

RGClark · #**556** (**permalink**) 17-August-2008, 07:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 01101001

They haven't reported any.

Aviation Week: Fast-Track Phoenix Mars Ice Test (July 3)

Still haven't reported any since the first bake.

They also haven't resorted to sampling the organic-free blank on deck, so they seem not yet to need to eliminate evidence of organic contamination from Earth.

It is important to keep in mind that though organics were not specifically identified it is possible that organics existed in the samples because of what was evolved: water and CO2. You can gather that from what was said by TEGA scientist William Boynton in the June 26th news conference:

NASA Phoenix Media Telecon - June 26.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ph...-20080626.html

Quote:

What we found first of all, there was no ice in this particular sample. This is not surprising to us because this was a surface sample.
And, if you remember, it was actually sitting over the TEGA ovens for several days while we were working to get it through the screen to get it into the oven. We also found when we heated the sample that some small amounts of carbon dioxide were released from the surface of the grains at relatively low temperatures. Again, this is nothing that's too unexpected.We know that carbon dioxide is very capable of sticking onto grain surfaces. So this was what we expected. what we did find when we heated the sample up to higher temperatures though, is we got small amounts of carbon dioxide released and also some modest amounts of water vapor. Again, this is what we were hoping to see expecting that the samples might have interacted with water and carbon dioxide in the past.
And indeed, we were successfully able to show that. At this point, it's rather difficult to quantify exactly how much was given off and to really do the mineral identifications. That's probably going to take several more weeks of analysis before we'll be really sure of what we're seeing.
What we can say now is that this soil clearly has interacted with water in the past. We don't know whether that interaction occurred in this particular area in the northern polar regions or whether it might have happened elsewhere and been blown up to this area as dust. So that's what I can say about TEGA at this point.

As we saw it is possible that organics decomposed to only give off CO2. William Boynton said the possibility of organics being the source of the CO2 couldn't be ruled out:

Quote:

Ken [Cramer]: Hi. Thank you. For Bill Boynton, just to follow up on the TEGA results are you definitely excluding organics? You did not find any organic material and any carbonates?
Bill Boynton: A-actually at this point, we can't really either include or exclude organics. We-we-we didn't see any signal that was clearly organic in nature. But at this particular time, the way we ran the analysis we weren't using our maximum sensitivity. So at-at this point, it's -- we-we can't say, yes, we found them. Nor can we say they are not present. So we-we just haven't seen any conclusive evidence for them at this time.
But it's-it's really going to take a while before we'll be able to say anything about the organics. And, as I think you're aware, even if we do see them, we then have the problem of determining whether they are terrestrial organics that we brought along with us or whether they're Martian organics. And, we'll have to analyze our blank sample that we carried along with us in order to be able to answer that question.

Also, interesting is that the water evolved was due to bound water in minerals. This would be most likely due to sulfates, carbonates, or phyllosilicates(clays):

Quote:

Emily Lakdawalla: Hi. This is for Bill Boynton. The water vapor that was given off in your highest temperature run, would that be consistent with the water coming from bound water in minerals or even with hydroxyl groups] and phylosilicates or something. Is it part of a mineral structure? Or would it be actual water inside the soil?
Bill Boynton: No. It's actually, well, that's -- your first suggestion is almost certainly the case. That associated, bound up in some minerals. It's not just surface absorbed water or any lightly bound water. At-at some point, we'll be able to identify or at least narrow down what types of minerals this might be. But it -- at this point, all we can say is it's almost certainly some type of chemically bound water or hydroxyl.

Bob Clark

JonClarke · #**557** (**permalink**) 17-August-2008, 08:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 01101001

Brr. We've got frost.

Wall paper!

Jon

Procyan · #**558** (**permalink**) 17-August-2008, 02:29 PM

Thanks BC, that paper is well worth "reading for understanding". I still have one burning chemistry question. The samples were heated in either 13CO2 or H2 atmospheres ( on earth using rio tinto soil as mars analog). And they state (as have others) "... the oxidation of the organic matter to carbon dioxide is catalyzed by the iron species present in the inorganic matrix and goes to completion at temperatures ≥350°C in the TV chamber."

Maybe If we wrote the reaction this way:

Hydrocarbons + Fe2O3 (or other iron oxides) -HEAT-> CO2 + Fe (reduced) + H20

NO! the iron oxide is a catalyst not a reactant. Help Dr. Evil!!! Where does the oxygen come from? Shouldn't there be a big water peak? Maybe I am all wet

Regardless of the exact chemistry, after reading that paper and comments here...pretty compelling that organics are still on the menu.

John Jones · #**559** (**permalink**) 17-August-2008, 05:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Procyan

Thanks BC, that paper is well worth "reading for understanding". I still have one burning chemistry question. The samples were heated in either 13CO2 or H2 atmospheres ( on earth using rio tinto soil as mars analog). And they state (as have others) "... the oxidation of the organic matter to carbon dioxide is catalyzed by the iron species present in the inorganic matrix and goes to completion at temperatures ≥350°C in the TV chamber."

Maybe If we wrote the reaction this way:

Hydrocarbons + Fe2O3 (or other iron oxides) -HEAT-> CO2 + Fe (reduced) + H20

NO! the iron oxide is a catalyst not a reactant. Help Dr. Evil!!! Where does the oxygen come from? Shouldn't there be a big water peak? Maybe I am all wet

[...].

I can't speak to that. Perhaps a non-standard usage of the term catalyst? Perhaps multiple sequential reactions? I spend most of my time doing HPLC.

Procyan · #**560** (**permalink**) 17-August-2008, 07:42 PM

Yes could be; I'm sure the CO2 does evolve during heating and the Navarro et al data are reliable. but at those elevated temperatures even a mineral like calcium carbonate, stable at neutral pH +, would also release CO2. I just don't get the TV-MS method at all. That's my failure I'm sure, not the Project's!

Also, mineral-bound water comes off at lower temperatures BEFORE the breakdown/oxidation of organics in TEGA. So bound water can't be the source of oxygen as it was in the CO to CO2 conversion described in the PNAS paper.

OK enough. Now I'll patiently wait until the experiments are completed and written up. Riiiiggght.

HPLC rules! I use it a lot in my work too.

01101001 · #**561** (**permalink**) 18-August-2008, 01:47 AM

Sol 82 Raw Images began arriving about 4.5 hours ago. There are about 15, atmosphere and sun, so far.

01101001 · #**562** (**permalink**) 18-August-2008, 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 01101001

Sol 82 Raw Images

This looks like a little more frost, 0333 local time:

Texas A&M University Phoenix SSI Raw Images Directory has Sol 82 labeled:

Quote:

Post-sample documentation of Burn Alive; remote sensing

No images of a filled scoop, though not all images are in. Sol 81 was labeled "Document Burning Coals sample acquisition; coordinated day and night remote sensing", but I didn't see the scoop filled then either. Maybe this is all part of that plan to look at sublimation on an icy sample to see if salt residue becomes apparent -- and they aren't sampling for the purpose of immediate delivery. (Plan described in Planetary Society Weblog, but that mentions Cupboard and Stone Soup, to the left, so I don't understand why they're looking over at Burn Alive on the right. Maybe they're just being flexible.)

Still the TEGA's got a hungry open oven, so it can happen as soon as they decide what to bake.

Edit: Oh, Texas A&M University Phoenix SSI Raw Images Directory has upcoming Sol 83 labeled: "Burning Coals acquisition, redux; early mor[n]ing, daytime, and late night remote sensing", so there must be some repetition or retrying going on.

sohh_fly · #**563** (**permalink**) 19-August-2008, 12:08 AM

i know the mission has been extended for another month or so after passing grades

what i'd like to know is what kind of science is left for phoenix for the next 6 weeks or so
i ask because im not sure what their mission outlines were like, except to find water and im sure their were other objectives ....so i'd like to know what some of them are
excuse my igonorance ..im just fascinated with this space exploration stuff

thx

01101001 · #**564** (**permalink**) 19-August-2008, 12:23 AM

NASA Phoenix Mission News: Frost Accumulation on Telltale Mirror

Quote:

Bright specks of frost accumulate on the mirror of the telltale on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander in this series of images taken between 12:54 a.m. and 2:34 a.m. at the landing site during the 80th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (on Aug. 15, 2008).
[...]
This type of early morning frost is not a concern for the operation of the spacecraft.

During the early-morning period when these images were taken the wind was blowing steadily at about 5 meters per second (about 11 miles per hour) from the northeast, as indicated by the telltale.

01101001 · #**565** (**permalink**) 19-August-2008, 12:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sohh_fly

what i'd like to know is what kind of science is left for phoenix for the next 6 weeks or so

This came from around the time of the extension:
Tucson Citizen: Still plenty of work left for UA's Mars Lander

Besides time granted by the extension, it still has other resources to employ: the Atomic Force Microscope has only imaged one dust mote. The Optical Microscope must have a large portion of its sample substrate sets available. (I haven't seen them document the usage.) Two of the 4 Wet Chemistry cells are unused. Five of the 8 TEGA ovens are unused. (If they find organics with TEGA, or even if they expect organics are yet in their data -- I think we'd all like to see organics -- one oven will be needed to test a calibrated carbon-free sample to largely eliminate Earth contamination as the source.) The much-discussed perchlorate seen by MECA hasn't been yet confirmed by TEGA.

They haven't dug as deep as they'd like to. The Stone Soup trench crosses polygon bondaries and will probably provide the deepest sample.

They haven't yet gotten an ice-rich sample into a TEGA oven due to stickiness problems.

They can do a lot more data gathering. The meteorology station can keep going, and the weather is beginning to show seasonal change. The Stereo Surface Imager can grab more images. The "Happily Ever After" panorama still needs to be completed.

We don't know all the science they have discovered and will discover from data already gathered, so it's hard to predict precisely what remains to be done.

We're like watching through small holes in the wall around a constuction site to see what's happening. Oh, curious. Look at that!

They've got the architect's plans and the know-how.

01101001 · #**566** (**permalink**) 19-August-2008, 05:37 AM

Sol 83 Raw Images just began arriving. I see as thumbnails a scoop with soil, and a scoop over TEGA oven #7. But, the large versions aren't yet available so I can't quite tell the details -- like did icy soil go in the oven?

Edit: Still not enough images yet, though the large versions are starting to work.

Open oven #7, still pretty clean, like pre-delivery. (0812 local time)

Scoop -- can't tell if it's with soil -- over oven. (0815 local time)

Aha, scoop with soil above oven. (0916 local time)

Just not enough images for the story.

Edit, hours later: there are plenty of images, but I still don't see if a delivery happened. The timestamps matter, and they come from hovering over a large image, and that takes too much time to sort them into chronological order in my head, especially when I know Texas A&M University Phoenix SSI Raw Images Directory :: Sol 83 will provide that sorting -- eventually (but right now it links to nowhere; Sol 82 isn't even organized yet). Maybe I'll just wait for a news release...

01101001 · #**567** (**permalink**) 19-August-2008, 08:42 PM

Sol 84 Raw Images have started to arrive. Already.

It appears to be wee-hours stuff creeping in (on little cat feet), about 15 images. The bulk will likely arrive much later.

01101001 · #**568** (**permalink**) 20-August-2008, 06:56 PM

You can't tell the trenches without a trench map:

This sol 85 press release image gallery (with sole image above, so far) was just set up. I'll be hoping there's a press release today to go with it.

01101001 · #**569** (**permalink**) 20-August-2008, 10:55 PM

Updated Texas A&M University Phoenix SSI Raw Images Directory has Sol 85 labeled:

Quote:

Document Burning Coals delivery to TA-7, Stone Soup trenching; frost monitoring and other remote sensing

Maybe today we will see that delivery attempt.

Sol 83 was labeled "Burning Coals acquisition redux", so I wonder if that same soil sample has been in the scoop that long. If it has, at least it should be less sticky (but less icy).

If the Burning Coals sample is related to Burn Alive trench, then this might be the purpose of this next TEGA oven operation (from Planetary Society Weblog):

Quote:

Ray explained to me that Burn Alive is where they plan to take the next sample for TEGA. He said that with the sample from Rosy Red 3, they have a surface sample; from Wicked Witch, TEGA has an ice-interface sample. The goal at Burn Alive is to get a sample from an intermediate depth, a couple centimeters above the ice-soil interface. That would give them the vertical profile they're looking for.

So, maybe they don't care if the ice sublimates from this one.

01101001 · #**570** (**permalink**) 21-August-2008, 12:35 AM

Here's that press release: JPL Phoenix Mission News: Phoenix Mars Lander Explores Site by Trenching (August 20)

Quote:

The team is excavating one side of Burn Alive 3 down to the ice layer and plans to leave about 1 centimeter (0.4 inch) of soil above the ice on the other side. This intermediate depth, located a couple centimeters (0.8 inch) above the Martian ice-soil boundary, gives the science team the vertical profile desired for a sample dubbed "Burning Coals," intended to be the next material delivered to Phoenix's Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA).

Sounds like they are still eventually going to do that inspection of a sample from the Cupboard neighborhood to see if salt appears to remain after sublimation.

Quote:

A sample from the Cupboard area may be delivered to the lander's wet chemistry lab, part of the Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA). The location for obtaining a sample would depend on results from further digging in "Upper Cupboard," and use of the thermal and electrical conductivity probe on the arm, inserted into icy soil within Upper Cupboard to test for the presence of salts.

In addition, Phoenix's robotic arm would acquire ice-rich soil from "Upper Cupboard" and observe the material in the arm's scoop to determine whether the sample sublimates. Melting is an indication of the presence of salt. If the sample melts and leaves behind a salty deposit, "Upper Cupboard" would be the location for the next sample for the wet chemistry lab. If no salts are detected, the team would continue with plans to use the "Stone Soup" trench for acquiring the next wet chemistry lab sample.

And, it sounds like they are still investigating defeating stickiness to get an icy sample into TEGA:

Quote:

In upcoming sols, the team plans to scrape the "Snow White" trench and experiment with acquiring and holding samples in the shade versus the sun. They want to find out if prolonged exposure to sunlight causes the acquired material to stick to the scoop, as has occurred with previous samples.

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