NASA's
Phoenix Mars Lander snapped this true 3D image of a trench it scraped. Grab those 3D glasses and get ready for red-and-blue splendor.
Known
informally as the "La Mancha" trench, the nearly 2-inch (5-cm) depression
reveals an ice layer beneath the Martian surface. Phoenix uncovered the first
solid evidence of ice water on Mars, although previous probes had detected
suspected quantities of such subsurface ice.
Phoenix
has recently focused more on survival, as it weathered
a dust storm that threatened already-dwindling power supplies. Power levels
from its solar arrays dropped from about 2,100 watt-hours per Martian day to a
couple hundred watt-hours at the height of the storm. Winter will ultimately
put Phoenix into a permanent freeze as the sun dips lower and lower in the
Martian sky.
— NASA and SPACE.com Staff
Credit: NASA/Johns
Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of
Washington
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