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The Planetary Society Blog

By Emily Lakdawalla

Phoenix sol 6: Holy cow, it's ice!

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There was a phone briefing this morning, and the science team seems to be pretty sure they are looking at ice in the image I posted last night, but they are doing the necessary tests to make sure. I can't post much about the conference until later, as I'm busy on baby duty, but I couldn't wait to mention that the icy site visible on last night's image has now been named "Holy Cow," as those are apparently the first words that were uttered by the members of the science team when that image came down! The platy features near the footpad seen in the previous sol's robotic arm camera image are called "Snow Queen."

Science plans for today include doing more robotic arm camera imaging of Snow Queen, using the LED light sources on the camera, to get a better sense of its real albedo, to help diagnose whether that one is actually ice. They will also repeat yesterday's observation of Holy Cow, many times with different exposures set on the camera, to try to build up a view of the area where none of it is overexposed.

More later.

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