Shake, shake, shake
Phoenix Lander's vibrators get Martian soil sample into instrument's oven
Seven rounds of shaking later, the Mars Phoenix Lander finally got some soil into one of its tiny ovens.
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The Phoenix science team instructed the robotic lander to deliver a scoop of dirt to the oven, which is part of the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer instrument, or TEGA, on June 6 — 12 days after Phoenix successfully landed on the Red Planet’s arctic plains. But the soil was too clumpy to fall through the sieve, which covers the oven and is designed to strain out larger chunks from the more fine-grained dirt.
“This soil is unlike anything we tested Phoenix with on Earth,” said the mission’s principal investigator Peter Smith during a NASA press briefing Wednesday. “It’s crusty and clumps into balls and sticks to the side of sloped metal surfaces.”