The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has snapped the Phoenix lander encased in carbon dioxide frost on the surface of the Red Planet.

“The amount of carbon dioxide frost is increasing as late winter transitions to early spring, so the layer of frost is getting thicker in each image, slowly encasing the lander,” says NASA. “The maximum thickness was expected to be on the order of tens of centimetres, which would have reached its peak in September 2009.”

Whether Phoenix will live up to its name remains to be seen. It stopped communicating with Earth last November and NASA will start listening in 2010 to see if it is able to re-establish contact after the frost melts.

Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona