Traveling at the speed of light, it took 15 minutes for the signal transmitting news of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's successful touchdown on the red planet to reach Earth. That news was followed a few hours later by this photo showing the craft's leg nestled firmly in the Martian soil.
The Phoenix Mars Lander's mission is to follow up on discoveries made by the Mars Odyssey Orbiter in 2002 showing large amounts of water ice just below the surface in the planet's northern arctic plain. Phoenix will use its robotic arm to dig through the protective top layer of soil to the water ice below and ultimately, to bring both soil and water ice to the lander platform for scientific analysis.
Image Courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
