Finally Ice on Mars found!!!

There have been lot of speculation on whether ice is present on Mars or not,many people choosing to disagree. But finally the verdict is out.The Phoenix Mars Lander has finally “tasted” and “touched” water ice, mission scientists reported. Detecting the water ice in this latest sample was a surprise, said Phoenix scientist William Boynton of the University of Arizona in Tucson during a July 31 mission press briefing. The Phoenix team has been trying to analyze a sample from a hard layer beneath the topsoil, but delivering such a sample to the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA, instrument has proven difficult for the past month. The TEGA ovens are designed to bake samples, identifying components primarily by their melting points as a way to directly detect the presence of certain compounds, such as water ice. When the oven heated the soil, some of the sample melted at 0° Celsius, the melting point of ice, and the TEGA also detected water vapor during the analysis, Boynton noted. Satellites orbiting Mars had given scientists their first clues that water ice might exist in the Martian polar regions. But TEGA’s ability to “sniff” out the water ice is the first test that gives direct confirmation that the water ice exists.

“Now, we have finally touched and tasted ice on Mars,” Boynton said, “and I can say it tastes very fine.”

So finally scientists instead of searching water on Mars can concentrate more on finding life on Mars.