Phoenix scoops up Mars water

From CNN's Kate Tobin

(CNN) - The Phoenix lander has successfully collected a tiny sample of ice from the surface of Mars and has begun to analyze it for signs of chemicals that could support life, NASA researchers announced Thursday.

Controllers have been trying to get an ice sample into a gas analyzer aboard the automated lander for weeks, struggling with a scraper and rasp on the probe's robotic arm that were designed to grind up the material for study, said Bill Boynton, part of the University of Arizona team running the project.

Eventually, however, they used a scoop on the arm to dig up a sample of dirt, about 1 percent of which contained ice, and loaded it into the analyzer successfully, he said.