NASA’s Curiosity rover has been extremely busy since it landed on a portion of Martian rock outcropping called the Aeolis Palus in Gale Craft on August 6, 2012. So busy in fact, that it spent the majority of its time traveling to its designated dig space — these things take time. But now, the robot’s intense labor has finally yielded some fruit, and by fruit, I mean reddish rock powder harvested from the first hole drilled into a Martian mountain. Its existence is the agency first confirmation of a mineral mapped from orbit.
This connects us with the mineral identifications from orbit, which can now help guide our investigations as we climb the slope and test hypotheses derived from the orbital mapping,” states Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
The rock powder was collected after a drilling expedition into a rock at the base of Mount Sharp that began at the tail end of September. The resulting sample was transferred to the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument aboard the rover, a machine that identifies and measures samples using X-ray beams. This particular sample was acquired from a section called “Confidence Hills,” located within the “Pahrump Hills” outcrop.
The sample’s analysis revealed a higher presence of hematite than any other rock or soil sample previously discovered during Curiosity’s two year mission. Hematite’s is an iron-oxide mineral whose formation signifies the existence of water at some point in the planet’s history. Depending on the type of hematite, it may also reveal the planet’s turbulent past, as the element may also from as a result of volcanic activity.
Curiosity may continue to spend anywhere between weeks to months digging samples at the Pahrump Hills site before relocating further up Mount Sharp.
Source: Phys.org
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