After 28 Sols, or Martian days, the latest images beamed back to NASA from Phoenix, like the one above, show that the lander is continuing to do its job successfully on Mars. Phoenix's robotic arm, in the picture on the top right corner, has just recently picked up a small amount of soil from the Martian ground. Very carefully and gently, the arm sprinkled some of this soil onto the delivery port of the Optical Microscope which is fitted on the Phoenix lander.
The robotic arm is right now in an up position to hold the remaining soil. This soil may be later delivered to the Wet Chemistry Lab or the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer. The researchers want the same type of soil sample to be delivered to all three instruments and analyzed so the findings from each instrument can be compared with those of the others.
Image from NASA.
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