The Phoenix Mars lander apparently has uncovered ice. The contraption had dug a trench in which it found dice-sized crumbs of bright material. Now, days later, they are gone, which the scientists claim is definite proof that the material was ice which melted after it was uncovered by the lander's digging operations.

Another dig has reached a hard layer which also appears to be ice. The material in the first trench has to be ice, experts say, because other stuff couldn't just have disappeared in days. The question was, before its vanishing act, whether it was ice or some kind of salt residue.

The main objective for NASA is to determine whether the environment found on Mars could sustain or could have sustained life. Such a conclusion can only be reached after a careful analysis of all compounds found on the terrain.

The Phoenix lander, hit by a string of glitches, had been put to rest as experts on Earth worked on an unexpected data glitch which led to the loss of some scientific information on the lander, including digital photos. It appears that some kind of data overload occurred and the device was unable to save the photos and additional data in the lander's flash memory.

The Earth team which controls Phoenix noticed the glitch after their gadget started sending the same data set all over again for about 45,000 times like a broken record. It appears that the bug has been fixed now.

The NASA scientists involved in the Phoenix Mars mission managed to resolve the soil sample analysis problem a week ago. The solution offered by NASA’s team is to use the robotic arm for the direct delivery of the soil to the Thermal and Evolve-Gas Analyzer by sprinkling the soil into the ovens. However, the actual chemical analysis is still in progress and its results will be announced soon.