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Mars rover Scooping in Search of Pristine material at Rocknest
Image caption: Time lapse context view of Curiosity maneuvering her robotic arm. Curiosity conducts a close- up examination of windblown ‘Rocknest’ ripple site and inspects sandy material at “bootlike” wheel scuff mark with the APXS (Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer) and MAHLI (Mars Hand Lens Imager) instruments positioned on the rotatable turret at the arm’s terminus. Colorized mosaic was stitched together from Sol 57 & 58 Navcam raw images shows the arm in action just prior to 1st sample scooping here. Surrounding terrain and eroded rim of Gale Crater rim is visible on the horizon. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo
NASA’s Curiosity rover is actively searching for uncontaminated Martian soil after finding new flecks of “bright material” of unknown origin in the windblown sands at “Rocknest” ripple.
The team leading the Curiosity Mars Science Lab (MSL) mission decided to dump the second scoopful of dusty material collected last week on Sol 66 (Oct. 12). Instead they will search for pristine Martian sand to pour into the rover’s critical sample-processing mechanisms to use as a decontamination agent for cleansing the interior chambers and walls.(…)
Read the rest of Mars rover Scooping in Search of Pristine material at Rocknest (581 words)
© Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: Curiosity, Curiosity Rover, Gale crater, Mars, Mars Rovers, Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), Mount Sharp, MSL
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2012-10-17 22:03:13
Source: http://www.universetoday.com/97954/mars-rover-scooping-in-search-of-pristine-material-at-rocknest/
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