PIA11236: Soil Fills Phoenix Laboratory Cell
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Phoenix
 Spacecraft:  Phoenix Mars Lander
 Instrument:  Robotic Arm Camera (RAC)
Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer 
 Product Size:  512 x 256 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  University of Arizona
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA11236.tif (131.4 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA11236.jpg (20.03 kB)

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Original Caption Released with Image:

This image shows four of the eight cells in the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA, on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander. TEGA's ovens, located underneath the cells, heat soil samples so the released gases can be analyzed.

Left to right, the cells are numbered 7, 6, 5 and 4. Phoenix's Robotic Arm delivered soil most recently to cell 6 on the 137th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Oct. 13, 2008).

Phoenix's Robotic Arm Camera took this image at 3:03 p.m. local solar time on Sol 138 (Oct. 14, 2008).

Phoenix landed on Mars' northern plains on May 25, 2008.

The Phoenix Mission is led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf of NASA. Project management of the mission is by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development is by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.

Photojournal Note: As planned, the Phoenix lander, which landed May 25, 2008 23:53 UTC, ended communications in November 2008, about six months after landing, when its solar panels ceased operating in the dark Martian winter.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Max Planck Institute

Image Addition Date:
2008-10-20