Mars Rover Curiosity Eats First Rock Powder Samples

Mars rover Curiosity has ingested portions of the first samples collected from the inside of a Martian rock.

The first sample of the Mars rock was placed inside the Chemistry and Mineralogy (or CheMin) instrument as well as on rover's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument during a two-day operation from Feb. 22-23. The two instruments have already begun inspecting the powder that was drilled from the inside of a Martian rock known as "John Klein". The drilling into the Mars rock target took place Feb. 8

With the help of a powerful drill, it bore a hole in the rock that showed the presence of minerals formed by flowing water. The sample was taken 2 inches beneath the surface. The rock was gray in color unlike the reddish color of other Martian rocks.

"Data from the instruments have confirmed the deliveries," Curiosity Mission Manager Jennifer Trosper of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif said in a press statement.

Additional portions of the same sample may be delivered to the instruments as the analysis proceeds.

"The gray-colored rock powder may preserve some indication of what iron was doing in these samples without the effect of some later oxidative process that would've rusted the rocks into this orange color that is sort of typical of Mars," Joel Hurowitz, sampling system scientist for Curiosity at JPL, was quoted as saying in Space.com

In the course of the two-year mission, with the help of Curiosity's 10 instruments, scientists are trying to assess whether the Gale crater on Mars supports microbial life.