This week's confirmation by NASA that the Phoenix lander had confirmed the presence of water ice on Mars was just the tip of the iceberg. Sources say other "provocative" and "complex" data, not disclosed in Thursday's announcement and not yet discussed openly by NASA officials associated with the Phoenix program, show that the red planet has "potential for life."
So hush-hush have been the latest findings that NASA excluded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory science team for the wet-chemistry instrument that made the findings from the news conference to prevent them from being asked questions before an announcement is made, Aviation Week & Space Technology reported.
NASA has briefed the science adviser's office of the White House ahead of what is expected to be a mid-August announcement, although sources said the revelations may not be made public until September.
While the announcement of the confirmation of water's presence on Mars was widely reported, scientists were not surprised and had expected the result.
"They have discovered water on Mars for the third or fourth time," a senior Mars scientist told Aviation Week.
The Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer team, announced last month, following the first of four wet chemistry experiments, that Mars soil chemistry is "Earth-like" and capable of supporting life.
Now, following the second MECA soil test, NASA and the University of Arizona are making efforts to keep the findings from being made public until an official announcement is made.
Rather than the mere presence of water, scientists are looking for how water and the Martian soil behave together. This week, after two attempts, the Phoenix scoop successfully deposited a sample of soil and ice into the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, where it was heated to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit so the released gases can be evaluated. Analysis will take several weeks.
An earlier electrical short that threatened the TEGA experiments has resolved itself, William Boynton, TEGA principal investigator from the University of Arizona, said.
From the beginning, scientists working on the Phoenix project have said that neither the TEGA organic chemistry lab nor the MECA wet chemistry system would be able to detect the presence of life, either current or past, but two microscopes on the MECA analyzer can resolve features as small as 10 nanometers, sufficient to detect bacteria.
