Water found on Mars

"The Phoenix lander confirms the existence of martian water." -- This is an interesting press release which I read on Mar's mission Phoenix lander (excerpts from the press release follows).

Laboratory tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies water vapors produced by the heating of samples.

"We have water," says William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA). "We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time martian water has been touched and tasted."

The soil sample came from a trench approximately 2 inches deep. When the robotic arm first reached that depth, it hit a hard layer of frozen soil. Two attempts to deliver samples of icy soil on days when fresh material was exposed were foiled when the samples became stuck inside the scoop. Most of the material in Wednesday's sample had been exposed to the air for 2 days, letting some of the water in the sample vaporize away and making the soil easier to handle.