Nasa’s rover Curiosity becomes first ever robot to drill a hole in Mars for dust sample to see if life existed on the planet
Worldwide, Daily news | ankakh | February 11, 2013 15:27For the first time, NASA’s rover Curiosity used its on-board drill to collect a sample of Martian bedrock that might offer evidence of a long-gone wet environment, the U.S. space agency said last night.
Drilling down 2.5 inches – 6.4 cm – into a patch of sedimentary bedrock, Curiosity collected the rock powder left by the drill and will analyze it using its own laboratory instruments, NASA said in a statement.
This is the first time a robot has drilled to collect a Martian sample.
Curiosity drilled into a rock named John Klein’ after a Mars Science Laboratory deputy project manager who died in 2011.
In the next few days, ground controllers will command the rover’s arm to process the sample by delivering bits of it to the instruments inside Curiosity.
The drilling and analysis is part of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Project, which is using the Curiosity rover to figure out whether an area in Mars’ Gale Crater ever offered a hospitable environment for life.
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