Traces of Martian Life : the search continues
ESA TV Exchanges
With several spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet, and rovers still operating on the ground, the exploration of Mars enters a new phase in a few days. NASA's Phoenix mission is due to arrive on May 25 with the objective to land a small laboratory probe which will dig into its upper surface. The mission will build on the latest scientific results obtained, notably, by the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter which has found water ice deposits deep in the ground and methane in its atmosphere. This A & B-Roll focuses on the complementary nature of the Phoenix and Mars Express missions, both attempting to find evidence of past life on Mars, and looks forward to ESA's ExoMars mission. For more info on this subject please check the script that is online as a PDF file under :http://television.esa.int/photos/EbS57089.pdf
A WMV preview clip is online under :http://esa.contentcoders.com/mphi/LIFE_ON_MARS_TV_09-05-08_wmphigh.wmv
The same set of file

Traces of Martian life: the search continues
01:01:40 A-Roll start
The most Earth-like of the planets, the most likely to have developed forms of life, and probably the first to be visited by humans... Mars continues to be a focus of planetary exploration.
01:01:54 Clip Agustin Chicarro, Mars Express Project scientist, ESA
""Mars shows a variety of geological phenomena, like volcanism, like polar caps, a transparent atmosphere, like glaciers, that are only shared with the Earth. These are the two planets in the whole solar system to have these features.""
01:02:11 Radar sounders aboard ESAís Mars Express and NASAís Mars Reconnaissance orbiters have already detected ice deposits deep underground. And now, after a ten-month journey, NASAís Phoenix laboratory probe will continue the search for water.
01:02:28 Its objective is to land in a permafrost region near the North pole. Its suite of instruments will scan the atmosphere and a robotic arm will attempt to dig down to an ic