The soil at the landing site of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has proved to be a bit clumpier than researchers anticipated. Over the weekend, Phoenix scooped up a shovel-full of ruddy dirt using its 7.7-foot (2.4-meter) robotic arm to deposit into its Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, a suite of tiny, single-use ovens for baking soil and ice samples to study their chemistry. But instead of easily passing through a series of metal screens that cover the oven opening, which are designed to sift the smaller particles from the sample, the dirt sat there in a pile. On Sunday, mission controllers instructed Phoenix to turn on a mechanical screen shaker to loosen the soil. NASA said that results from the shaking should be reported today.
Phoenix Mars Lander Chokes on Clumped Soil
NASA tells Phoenix to shake metal screen to dislodge sample
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