Assault on Mars

As the Mars rover Spirit recently trudged up a rocky edifice known as Husband Hill, the vehicle’s wheels churned up material that drew the immediate attention of scientists. The soil appeared unusually bright, and researchers directed Spirit to take a closer look.

The rover’s survey camera and three spectrometers, which study the composition of materials at wavelengths ranging from gamma rays to the near infrared, revealed that the bright soil patch is laden with a greater amount of chemical salts than any other sample examined on Mars.