Nancy Atkinson at Universe Today (pretty much the best ressource for space news) has an article about a presse conference by the team of the Phoenix Mars lander that gave some great news: They confirmed that a white substance that has been visible in some Phoenix photos is indeed water ice.

Water is a prerequisite for life. Some people think that at some point there has at least microbacterial life on Mars, and this has just become a little more probable. Just as important, if humans ever want to build a permanent base on Mars it would be a lot easier if they haven’t to bring their own water from earth.

Here is the original article from the phoenix web site.