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After photographing a blind spot, the UA-led Phoenix Mars Mission could’ve found ice underneath the lander, scientists close to the mission said at a briefing this morning.

After using the lander’s main camera to put together a 360-degree view of Phoenix’s surroundings, the spacecraft’s robotic arm was ordered to peek underneath the main deck and see what was there.

The image returned Thursday evening shows what could be either rock or ice, said Ray Arvidson, a lead scientist for the lander’s robotic arm.

It is believed that thrusters that slowed Phoenix before it touched down on the red planet blew away dirt covering the feature, which has scientists hopeful that ice lurks only a few inches beneath the arctic region of the planet, said Arvidson, who is from Washington University of St. Louis.

“We don’t know what they are, but we’re going to go back and get a closer look,” he said. “This is pretty exciting because we expect ice.”

The exposed feature is in a place that the robotic arm can’t reach, but more pictures and studies of the surrounding area should be able to answer the question of whether it’s ice.

“It remains to be seen which it is,” Arvidson said.

In other lander news, mission planners reported a possible short circuit in one of the experiment labs, though it might be possible to fix it or work around it, said Bill Boynton, a lead investigator with the experiment.

Team members working on the Thermal Evolved Gas Analyzer have spent the past day working on troubleshooting.

Even if the possible short can’t be fixed, it shouldn’t stop scientists from using the experiment, which heats up soil and analyzes the content to determine what molecules are in the surface.

“We’re actually quite optimistic that we’ll be able to work around it and have full capabilities,” Boynton said.