Phoenix: Here's the Scoop

NASA's Phoenix Mars lander continues its journey to the red planet following its Aug. 4, 2007 liftoff, and is checking out its equipment along the way.

All tucked up inside its protective shell, the lander's Robotic Arm Camera (RAC) snapped a photo of the Robotic Arm Scoop. To capture the image, the spacecraft utilized a red light-emitting diode (LED) lamp. The picture has been beefed up in false color to better represent what the camera saw.

The camera, scoop and other instruments are encased in a protective "biobarrier" to ensure no Earth organisms are carried to Mars and guard against "forward contamination" of the red planet.

Once on the surface of Mars, the Phoenix lander will deploy its robotic arm. The robotic shovel will dig trenches, scoop up icy soil samples and dump them into instruments on the lander's deck for chemical analysis, then beam the data back to Earth. Once Phoenix scientists receive the soil specs, they hope to determine whether or not Mars was--or still is--a place hospitable to microbial life.

Images from the RAC, one of five imaging devices on the lander, will be the only pictures taken and sent to Earth until Phoenix makes a May 25, 2008 approach and landing on Mars. Additional spacecraft-monitoring images will be taken by the camera later in the cruise stage to Mars.

• VIDEO: NASA's Phoenix: Rising to the Red Planet
• VIDEO: Looking for Life in All the Right Places
• Top 10 Amazing Discoveries by NASA's Mars Rovers