Figure 6-20 RIVUXG Martian Explorers (a) NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander monitors the atmosphere overhead and reaches out to the soil below in this artist’s depiction of the spacecraft fully deployed on the surface of Mars. (b) The Phoenix lander uncovered ice beneath the Martian surface. This trench, just 8.7 in (22 cm) wide and 13.8 in (35 cm) long and informally called Dodo-Goldilocks, shows white areas that are most likely ice. The image also shows a few white lumps in the middle left of the trench, which disappeared over a few days, in a process similar to evaporation.