The Mars Phoenix just issued a highly official twitter update saying that some white, shiny stuff it was staring at has sublimated. In other words, it's definitely ice. The previous discovery of probable ice sent thousands of scientists and NASA fans into violent discovery-gasms, but until the Phoenix team was to observe sublimation, which is when ice skips the liquid state and just evaporates, they couldn't be sure.


Digging earlier today, the Phoenix (which apparently has just 128MB of RAM) knocked loose a few white particles that have since disappeared. So basically, the possibilities are as follows: Sublimation has occurred, there is Martian ice, and our children's children's children will enjoy iced lattes and Sno-Cones just like we do, or an alien just realized that we'd totally uncovered his stash. Either way, this is pretty exciting. Moon landing deniers and gif enthusiasts can check out the (giant) proof below, courtesty of NASA. [Mars Phoenix via Twitter]