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Curiosity Drills Historic 1st Bore Hole into Mars Rock for First Ever Science Analysis
Curiosity Rover snapped this new self portrait mosaic this week with the MAHLI camera while sitting on flat sedimentary rocks at the “John Klein” outcrop where the robot just conducted historic first sample drilling inside the Yellowknife Bay basin, on Feb. 8 (Sol 182) at lower left in front of rover. The photo mosaic was stitched from raw images snapped on Sol 177, or Feb 3, 2013, by the robotic arm camera – accounting for foreground camera distortion. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)
Earth’s most advanced planetary robot ever has successfully bored into the interior of Martian rock and collected fresh samples in a historic first time feat in humankinds exploration of the cosmos.
NASA’s Curiosity drilled a circular hole about 0.63 inch (16 mm) wide and about 2.5 inches (64 mm) deep into a slab of fine-grained sedimentary rock rife with hydrated mineral veins, that the team believes repeatedly experienced percolation of flowing liquid water eons ago when Mars was warmer and wetter – and potentially more hospitable to the possible evolution of life.
The drilling took place on Friday, Feb. 8, 2013 on Sol 182 of the mission and images were just beamed back to Earth today, Saturday, Feb 9. The rover just celebrated 6 months on the Red Planet since the nail biting touchdown on Aug. 6, 2012 inside Gale Crater.(…)
Read the rest of Curiosity Drills Historic 1st Bore Hole into Mars Rock for First Ever Science Analysis (770 words)
© Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2013. |
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Post tags: Curiosity, Curiosity Rover, Gale crater, Mars, Mars Rovers, Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), Mount Sharp, MSL
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2013-02-09 16:30:51
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