National Geographic listed their top ten space discoveries of 2009. Number 7 goes to the Mars Phoenix lander, which discovered liquid water upon landing. Co-Investigator Nilton Renno is a University of Michigan AOSS-department scientist, and his (ex-)graduate student, Manish Mehta, performed the experiments that demonstrated that the lander would likely uncover ice by blowing away dust during touch down.
Manish was a fellow grad student during my time at Michigan; congratulations to him and the entire group.
Crazy-hair Mehta was one of my favorite AOSS students...outside of you and Patty, of course.
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