Space Exploration

Images from NASA's Phoenix lander released late Thursday appeared to confirm the presence of buried ice, the first evidence that the spacecraft landed in the right spot last month to find water on Mars. Pictures taken of a trench dug earlier in the week by the lander's nearly 8-foot-long robotic arm showed that eight small, whitish chunks of material at the base of the trench had disappeared by Thursday.

The first chemistry results from Mars' northern plain reveal an environment more hospitable to life than some scientists had predicted, one that might allow future colonists to grow crops as familiar on Earth as asparagus and green beans. Strawberries, though, might be tougher, Phoenix mission scientists said Thursday. "We're flabbergasted by this data," said Sam Kounaves, the lead scientist for the wet chemistry experiment on the Phoenix spacecraft, which landed May 25 on Mars.

Re "Rock analysis turns up evidence of moon water," July 10 I am not surprised by this news of ancient water on the moon. The knowledge about our universe accumulated by NASA and space researchers over the last 50 years has completely revised our image of the cosmos. In the early 1950s, most people thought that most of the observable universe was an empty void where very little had been happening. We have since learned that water is probably one of the most common resources in our solar systems and that almost every planet and moon had, or now has, deposits of water in one form or another.

We know how John McCain and Barack Obama are polling in the red states, the blue states, Europe, the Middle East, China and around the world. But how are the presidential candidates polling on Mars? Red Planet policy turns out to be one of the areas in which McCain and Obama present bright, clear policy differences.

Re "Looking at Mars," editorial, July 23 Once again, I must disagree with your editorial on the future of spaceflight and your continued opposition to human exploration. Although robots have their uses in going places where it is currently impossible to send humans, human spaceflight has many advantages, such as the ability to explore on a hunch and the ability to conduct in-flight repairs. There is also the inherent desire to travel to new places and literally "go where no man has gone before."

After weeks of testing the soil in the Martian arctic, NASA's Phoenix lander has for the first time confirmed through chemical analysis the presence of water on another planet, scientists said Thursday. Several weeks ago, Phoenix uncovered convincing visual evidence that it had landed on an ice field when it set down on Mars' northern plain May 25.

NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander has sent back the first-ever image of a speck of red Martian dust taken through an atomic force microscope, shown at a higher magnification than anything ever seen from another planet. The dust particle is about one micrometer across -- one-millionth of a meter -- and is representative of the dust that cloaks Mars, producing the planet's distinctive red soil and pink sky, NASA said.

NASA has delayed the launch of an unmanned spacecraft to the moon to scout for potential landing sites for astronauts. The moon craft is the first step in NASA's program to send astronauts back to the moon and beyond. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was supposed to blast off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in early December aboard an Atlas V rocket. But the launch was pushed back after NASA agreed to swap with the Air Force, which will fly a prototype space drone.

Iran's state TV said its space agency aims to send an astronaut into space within 10 years. The report Thursday quoted Space Agency chief Reza Taghipoor as saying that the mission's timing would be decided over the next year. It gave no other details. Iran has stepped up its space ambitions in recent years, worrying world leaders already concerned about its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The latest forecast on Mars calls for morning fog and swift-moving clouds -- along with light snow. The surprising weather report was part of the latest scientific findings from NASA's Phoenix lander, which has been taking measurements at the Martian north pole since May 25.