Evaporating ice on Mars

The Mars Phoenix Lander has found direct photographic evidence of ice near the surface of Mars. It was uncertain whether the white material found when it dug a trench was ice, salts, or some other mineral, but it managed to take photographs of some of the white material disappearing. This could only be due to the white material subliming, which most probably means that it's ice.

It's exciting to get direct contact with a substantial ice layer on the red planet. Maybe in the far future it will make Mars exploration and colonization much more feasible. While I thought we would have to wait for results from the TEGA lab instrument, it's a pleasant surprise to find confirmation of water in the form of ice with photographic evidence.

The before and after photographs of the ice subliming in the trench are courtesy of NASA.