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.
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