The Aviation & Space overachiever of the year is, without a doubt, the Mars Phoenix Lander, which carried the most advanced equipment ever sent to a planet all the way to Mars and then discovered water ice, snow, and limestone-like compounds in the snow—all of which suggest that Mars just may have once been home to living organisms.
The big discovery: water ice, just inches below the surface of the Martian arctic plane. Phoenix found the ice by scooping away the soil and “watching” it vaporize over the course of a few days.