Phoenix confirms that there is water on Mars, says NASA and extends the mission.

A distinctive hard-surface feature called "Snow Queen" beneath NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander visibly changed sometime between mid-June and mid-July, close-up images from the Robotic Arm Camera show.

This panorama mosaic, taken by the Surface Stereo Imager on board NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, documents the passage of the midnight sun over several days.

The first robotic mission to return samples to Earth from Mars took a further step toward realisation with the recent publication of a mission design report by the iMARS Working Group. The report defines key elements of the future internationally-funded mission involving the cooperation of ESA, NASA and other national agencies.

Crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by Phoenix four days ago on planet Mars, convincing scientists that frozen water vaporized after digging exposed it.

These are two separate, side-by-side animations made from the same nine images the Surface Stereo Imager (SSI) on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander took looking into the sky after 5:17 p.m. local time on Sol 8 (June 2, 2008), the eighth Martian day of the mission.

Nearly two weeks after its historic landing, the US Mars probe Phoenix has scooped up its first sample of Martian soil and begun analysing it for water and organic compounds, a NASA official said.

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander reached out and touched the Martian soil for the first time on Saturday, May 31, the first step in a series of actions expected to bring soil and ice to the lander's experiments.

Camera on Phoenix Arm Looks Beneath NASA Mars Lander. A view of the ground underneath NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander adds to evidence that descent thrusters dispersed overlying soil and exposed a harder substrate that may be ice.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter successfully received information from the Phoenix Mars Lander Tuesday evening and relayed the information to Earth. The relayed transmission included images and other data collected by Phoenix during the mission's second day after landing on Mars.

First images are coming from Mars exploration mission Phoenix after the spacecraft successfully made landing on Mars.

- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is preparing to end its long journey and begin a three-month mission to taste and sniff fistfuls of Martian soil and buried ice. The lander is scheduled to touch down on the Red Planet May 25.