North is up (the 12 o’clock position) in this seam-corrected 360 degree polar projection using images from sols, or Martian days, 1 and 3. Seam boundaries show different times of day.
Mars, a cold desert planet with no liquid water on its surface, has water ice that lurks just below ground level in its arctic region. Discoveries made by the Mars Odyssey Orbiter in 2002 show large amounts of subsurface water ice in the northern arctic plain. Phoenix will use its robotic arm to dig through the protective top soil layer to the water ice below and ultimately, to bring both soil and water ice to the lander platform for sophisticated scientific analysis.
For information on the Phoenix Mars Lander, visit www.nasa.gov/phoenix.Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona