The exhaust from the Phoenix Lander's descent engine removed soil and exposed either rock or ice.
The possible ice appears in this image the robotic arm camera took underneath the lander:
"We could very well be seeing rock, or we could be seeing exposed ice in the retrorocket blast zone," said Ray Arvidson of Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., co-investigator for the robotic arm. "We'll test the two ideas by getting more data, including color data, from the robotic arm camera. We think that if the hard features are ice, they will become brighter because atmospheric water vapor will collect as new frost on the ice.
"Full confirmation of what we're seeing will come when we excavate and analyze layers in the nearby workspace," Arvidson said.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Calech/University of Arizona.
Watch the following video report from the Associated Press:
This isn't the first time ice has been photographed on Mars.
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