Engineers and scientists operating NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have been practice testing releasing Martian soil from the scoop on the lander's robotic arm.
When the arm collected and released its first scoopful of soil on Sunday, some of the sample stuck to the scoop.
The team told Phoenix yesterday morning to lift another surface sample and release it, with more extensive imaging of the steps in the process.
'We are proceeding cautiously,' said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona.
'Before we begin delivering samples to the instruments on the deck, we want a good understanding of how the soil behaves', he said.
On Monday, an image from the north side of the lander looking toward the southern leg shows smooth surfaces cleared from overlying soil by the rocket exhaust during landing.
The smooth and level surfaces have suggested to scientists that the underlying material may be an ice table covered by a thin blanket of soil.
The bright-looking surface material in the centre, where the image is partly overexposed, may not be inherently brighter than the foreground material in shadow.
