NASA Mars Curiosity Rover discovers mineral match

This image shows the first holes drilled by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity at Mount Sharp. 

The loose material near the drill holes is drill tailings and an accumulation of dust that slid down the rock during drilling. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Reddish rock powder from the first hole drilled into a Martian mountain by NASA's Curiosity rover has yielded the mission's 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," said Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Curiosity collected the powder by drilling into a rock outcrop at the base of Mount Sharp in late September.

The robotic arm delivered a pinch of the sample to the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument inside the rover.

This sample, from a target called "Confidence Hills" within the "Pahrump Hills" outcrop, contained much more hematite than any rock or soil sample previously analyzed by CheMin during the two-year-old mission.

Hematite is an iron-oxide mineral that gives clues about ancient environmental conditions from when it formed.

In observations reported in 2010, before selection of Curiosity's landing site, a mineral-mapping instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provided evidence of hematite in the geological unit that includes the Pahrump Hills outcrop.

The landing site is inside Gale Crater, an impact basin about 96 miles (154 kilometers) in diameter with the layered Mount Sharp rising about three miles (five kilometers) high in the center.

"We've reached the part of the crater where we have the mineralogical information that was important in selection of Gale Crater as the landing site," said Ralph Milliken of Brown University,

Providence, Rhode Island. He is a member of Curiosity's science team and was lead author of that 2010 report in Geophysical Research Letters identifying minerals based on observations of lower Mount Sharp by the orbiter's Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM).

"We're now on a path where the orbital data can help us predict what minerals we'll find and make good choices about where to drill. Analyses like these will help us place rover-scale observations into the broader geologic history of Gale that we see from orbital data."

This image from NASA's Curiosity rover shows a sample of powdered rock extracted by the rover's drill from the "Confidence Hills" target, the first rock drilled after Curiosity reached the base of Mount Sharp in September 2014. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Much of Curiosity's first year on Mars was spent investigating outcrops in a low area of Gale Crater called "Yellowknife Bay," near the spot where the rover landed.

The rover found an ancient lakebed. Rocks there held evidence of wet environmental conditions billions of years ago that offered ingredients and an energy source favourable for microbial life, if Mars ever had microbes.

Clay minerals of interest in those rocks at Yellowknife Bay had not been detected from orbit, possibly due to dust coatings that interfere with CRISM's view of them.

The rover spent much of the mission's second year driving from Yellowknife Bay to the base of Mount Sharp.

The hematite found in the first sample from the mountain tells about environmental conditions different from the conditions recorded in the rocks of Yellowknife Bay.

The rock material interacted with water and atmosphere to become more oxidized.

The rocks analyzed earlier also contain iron-oxide minerals, mostly magnetite. One way to form hematite is to put magnetite in oxidizing conditions.

The latest sample has about eight percent hematite and four percent magnetite. The drilled rocks at Yellowknife Bay and on the way to Mount Sharp contain at most about one percent hematite and much higher amounts of magnetite.

"There's more oxidation involved in the new sample," said CheMin Deputy Principal Investigator David Vaniman of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona.

This side-by-side comparison shows the X-ray diffraction patterns of two different samples collected from rocks on Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover. 

The images present data obtained by Curiosity's Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin). 

At left is a pattern of data from analysis of the "Cumberland" rock target in the "Yellowknife Bay" area investigated by Curiosity in 2013. 

The pattern at right is from the "Confidence Hills" target that was the first rock drilled after Curiosity reached the base of Mount Sharp in September 2014. 

A label in the right image of the annotated view points out evidence for the mineral hematite in this rock. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The sample is only partially oxidized, and preservation of magnetite and olivine indicates a gradient of oxidation levels.

That gradient could have provided a chemical energy source for microbes.

The Pahrump HIlls outcrop includes multiple layers uphill from its lowest layer, where the Confidence Hills sample was drilled.

The layers vary in texture and may also vary in concentrations of hematite and other minerals.

The rover team is now using Curiosity to survey the outcrop and assess possible targets for close inspection and drilling.

This view shows the path and some key places in a survey of the "Pahrump Hills" outcrop by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover in autumn of 2014. The outcrop is at the base of Mount Sharp within Gale Crater. 

The mission's in-place investigation of the layered mountain began at the low edge of the Pahrump Hills outcrop, at the target "Confidence Hills." 

Curiosity collected a drilled sample of rock powder at that target in September 2014 and delivered portions of the powder into analytical instruments inside the rover. 

Then the mission began a "walkabout" of the outcrop, similar to the way field geologists on Earth walk across an outcrop to choose the best places on it to examine in detail. 

The dashed gold line indicates the path the rover drove during the walkabout. Names are shown for a few of the features visited and observed by the rover. 

Red dots indicate stops at the end of a day's drive. White dots indicate locations of stops made during the drives to collect observations of the Pahrump Hills outcrop. 

The mission completed the walkabout at the site labeled "Whale Rock," and the team is now examining the observations acquired during the walkabout to decide where to return for more detailed analysis. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The mission may spend weeks to months at Pahrump Hills before proceeding farther up the stack of geological layers forming Mount Sharp.

Those higher layers include an erosion-resistant band of rock higher on Mount Sharp with such a strong orbital signature of hematite, it is called "Hematite Ridge."

The target drilled at Pahrump Hills is much softer and more deeply eroded than Hematite Ridge.

Another NASA Mars rover, Opportunity, made a key discovery of hematite-rich spherules on a different part of Mars in 2004.

That finding was important as evidence of a water-soaked history that produced those mineral concretions.

The form of hematite at Pahrump Hills is different and is most important as a clue about oxidation conditions. Plenty of other evidence in Gale Crater has testified to the ancient presence of water.

NASA Mars Curiosity Rover: Leaving Landing 'Safe Zone'

This image taken on June 27, 2014 by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on the rover's landing-ellipse boundary, which is superimposed on the image. 

The ellipse measures approximately 4 miles wide by 12 miles long.

Credit: NASA /JPL-Caltech /Univ. of Arizona

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has entered a new realm on the Red Planet.

The 1-ton Curiosity rover has now cruised out of its landing ellipse, the area, about 4 miles wide by 12 miles long (7 by 20 kilometers), regarded as safe ground for its August 2012 touchdown within Mars' huge Gale Crater, NASA officials said.

Indeed, a photo taken by the space agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on June 27 shows Curiosity right on this boundary, which encloses a region of relatively flat and smooth terrain.



Curiosity landed with the aid of a rocket-powered sky crane, which lowered the six-wheeled robot down softly on cables before flying off to crash-land intentionally a safe distance away.

This system, which had never been used before at Mars, allowed Curiosity to land with much more precision than previous Red Planet missions had been able to achieve.

For example, NASA's twin Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed inside an ellipse measuring 93 miles by 12 miles (150 by 20 km) in January 2004, and the ellipse for the agency's two Viking landers, which touched down on Mars in 1976, spanned 174 miles by 62 miles (280 by 100 km).

Curiosity's $2.5 billion mission, officially known as the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), seeks to determine if Mars has ever been capable of supporting microbial life.

The rover team has already achieved this goal, announcing last year that an area near Curiosity's landing site called Yellowknife Bay was a habitable lake-and-stream system billions of years ago.

Mars Curiosity Rover: Travels outside landing ellipse

Nasa Curiosity Rover treks across Martian dunes and drives outside landing ellipse here, in this photo mosaic view captured on Sol 672, June 27, 2014. 

Distant eroded rim of Gale Crater seen in background. Navcam camera raw images stitched and colorized. 

Credit: NASA /JPL-Caltech /Marco Di Lorenzo /Ken Kremer

NASA's intrepid robot Curiosity is roving rapidly across the sandy ripples of the Red Planet in her quest to reach mysterious Mount Sharp and just drove outside her landing ellipse!

The six wheeled rover marked a major milestone on Sol 672, June 27, 2014, by driving beyond her targeted landing ellipse for the first time since touchdown nearly two years ago on August 5, 2012.

"On yestersol's drive [June 27], I left my landing ellipse, the 20×25 km area I targeted for landing," Curiosity tweeted across interplanetary space.

See our new Sol 672 photo mosaic above showing Curiosity's glorious view marking this major achievement just days ago.

Since switching paths to smoother, sandier terrain with less sharp edged rocks, Curiosity continues rolling across the floor of her Gale Crater landing site.

"After traversing 82 meters the rover stopped because it determined that it was slipping too much," wrote mission scientist Ken Herkenhoff in an update.

"Coincidentally, the rover stopped right on the landing ellipse, a major mission milestone!"

"The vehicle was designed to be able to traverse far enough to drive out of the region defined by the uncertainty in the landing location, and has now achieved that laudable goal."

Curiosity treks to Mount Sharp in this photo mosaic view captured on Sol 669, June 24, 2014. 

Navcam camera raw images stitched and coloured. 

Credit: NASA /JPL-Caltech /Marco Di Lorenzo /Ken Kremer

The SUV sized rover automatically stopped when it encountered soft sand and sensed that it wasn't making enough progress. It's been programmed with this built in safety check to avoid being trapped in a quagmire.

Earlier last week, Curiosity celebrated another milestone anniversary on June 24 (Sol 669), 1 Martian Year on Mars!

A Martian year is equivalent to 687 Earth days, or nearly two Earth years.

Curiosity crosses landing ellipse on Sol 672. 

Credit: NASA/JPL

During Year 1 on Mars, Earth's emissary has already accomplished her primary objective of discovering a habitable zone on the Red Planet that contains the minerals necessary to support microbial life in the ancient past.

So there's no stopping Curiosity on her way to Mount Sharp, which dominates the center of Gale Crater and reaches 3.4 miles (5.5 km) into the Martian sky, taller than Mount Rainier.

Curiosity rover panorama of Mount Sharp captured on June 6, 2014 (Sol 651) during traverse inside Gale Crater. 

Note rover wheel tracks at left. She will eventually ascend the mountain at the ‘Murray Buttes’ at right later this year. 

Assembled from Mastcam colour camera raw images and stitched by Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer. 

Credit: NASA /JPL /MSSS /Marco Di Lorenzo /Ken Kremer

Driving, Driving, Driving, that's Curiosity's number one priority as she traverses across the surface of Gale Crater towards towering Mount Sharp on an expedition in search of the chemical ingredients of life that could support Martian microbes if they ever existed.

Curiosity still has about another 2.4 miles (3.9 kilometers) to go to reach the entry way at a gap in the dunes at the foothills of Mount Sharp sometime later this year.

To date, Curiosity's odometer totals over 5.1 miles (8.4 kilometers) since landing inside Gale Crater on Mars in August 2012. She has taken over 162,000 images.

ESA ExoMars: Mars Landing Site selection

The ESA ExoMars "longlist". Two proposals were received for Mars' Mawrth Vallis, but these were virtually the same

The ESA has published the "longlist" of eight sites it is considering as a destination for the ExoMars rover.

The 300kg vehicle will be put on the surface of the Red Planet in January 2019 to search for evidence of past or present life.

It should operate for at least seven months and will carry a drill to probe up to 2m underground.

The sites are generally clustered in a relatively tight zone close to the equator. They are: Hypanis Vallis, Shalbatana (Simud) Vallis, Mawrth Vallis, Oxia Planum (x2), Coogoon Valles, Oxia Palus and Southern Isidis.

The ExoMars Landing Site Selection Working Group is meeting now in Madrid to begin the process of downselection.

The teams that proposed these locations will make their case during the Spanish gathering (two, virtually identical proposals were received for Mawrth Vallis).

It is hoped to have a shortlist of no more than four locations in June or July. These will then be intensively studied, calling on new high-resolution pictures and mineralogical data acquired by satellites in orbit at Mars.

A final decision is likely to be announced in 2017. This will probably take the form of a first choice and a back-up.

We've been talking about ExoMars for a long time. The project has had several ups and downs, but it is now moving positively in the right direction.

The venture is a joint undertaking with the Russians, who, as well as providing the launch rocket in May 2018, and some of the instrumentation, will also build the landing system.

This will see the rover enter the Martian atmosphere in 2019 in a protective shell, deploying parachutes and retro-rockets to reduce the descent velocity.

The robotic vehicle will arrive at the surface on a legged lander, driving down a ramp to begin its grand traverse.

Everything hinges on a safe touchdown, of course. However, scientifically, it's vital ExoMars goes to the right place.

I have used two maps on this page to help explain how the final decision will be made.

They are both Mercator projections of Mars which will be familiar from Earth maps that also pull the 360-degree globe on to a flat surface.

For reference, I've marked the locations of the two current American rovers - Curiosity and Opportunity - on the top map.

Choosing a site is a trade-off between what's scientifically desirable and what's achievable with the available engineering.

ExoMars wants to search for life markers. Its best chance of finding these will be to go to places where there is abundant evidence for long-duration, or frequently reoccurring, water activity.

This will exist on the old terrains of Mars i.e. ones that are billions of years old.

These are places where you would hope to roll across recently exposed fine-grained sediments; the kind of clay-bearing mudstones that Curiosity has been enjoying in Gale Crater.

Mars ASU THEMIS camera to get new views of Red Planet

ASU's Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) is taking regular temperature measurements of the ground as the orbit of NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft drifts toward a time of day that will give THEMIS views of Mars around sunrise and sunset. 

This will be the first systematic observations of these times of day in more than a generation. 

Here, THEMIS is imaging the floor of Gale Crater, using its visual wavebands to create a color view of the area where Mars rover Curiosity (too small to be imaged) is exploring for ancient habitable environments. 

Image courtesy NASA /JPL-Caltech /Arizona State University.

For the first time since the Viking Mars mission of the 1970s, which ended more than a generation ago, scientists will soon begin systematic observations of Mars from orbit at times of day around local sunrise and sunset.

The instrument they will use is the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera, designed at Arizona State University.

Mars Odyssey carries three main science instruments: The Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS), the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS), and the Mars Radiation Environment Experiment (MARIE).

The spacecraft has been drifting toward the new orbit for more than a year, and a small engine burn on Feb. 11 accelerated the drift so it can finalize the orbit in November of 2015.

During the transition, THEMIS will continue observations as the orbital time of day changes.

Philip Christensen

"We don't know exactly what we'll find when we get to an orbit where we see Mars just after sunrise," says Philip Christensen, designer and principal investigator for THEMIS.

He is a Regents' Professor of Geological Sciences in ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration on the Tempe campus. Christensen developed the post-orbit change observing plan.

THEMIS is a multi-band camera that images Mars in nine infrared (heat-sensitive) "colours" and five visible ones. It was launched on Mars Odyssey in April 2001 and reached the Red Planet in October that year.

The spacecraft spent several months dipping into the Martian atmosphere to regularize its orbit, and THEMIS began science imaging in February 2002.

With more than 12 years elapsed since arrival, Mars Odyssey is the longest-working Mars spacecraft of any nation.


Morning and evening on Mars
Besides revealing landscapes in sharp relief, thanks to the low sun angle, the new orbital time of day for THEMIS promises to let scientists explore frosts, ground fogs, early morning clouds and hazes, and other transient atmosphere-related features that usually vanish as the Martian day goes on.

"We know that in places, carbon dioxide frost forms overnight," says Christensen. "And then it sublimates immediately after sunrise."

"What would this process look like in action? How would it behave? We've never observed this kind of phenomenon directly."

He notes that the Martian atmosphere is more variable than scientists have appreciated in the past.

"We can look for seasonal differences," says Christensen. "Are fogs more common in winter or spring? Do they vary from day to day? From one part of the year to another? From year to year? We'll check it out."

In addition, THEMIS will measure surface temperatures at thousands of locations. These observations can yield insight about materials in the ground and about temperature-driven processes.

These include warm-season flows of water or brine seen on some slopes, and gas-and-sand geysers fed by spring thawing of carbon dioxide ice near Mars' south pole.

Jeffrey Plaut

"We're teaching an old spacecraft new tricks," says Odyssey project scientist Jeffrey Plaut at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"We will be in position to do something that has never been done systematically: to watch how morning fog, clouds and surface frost develop at different times of year."

After Mars Odyssey reaches its intended orbit of 6:45 a.m. and p.m. (local time) in November 2015, mission engineers expect Odyssey will have enough propellant for nine to 10 more years of operation, an important matter for ongoing Mars exploration.

Besides conducting its own observations, Odyssey also serves as a crucial communications relay to Earth for the two active rovers, Curiosity and Opportunity, operating on the Martian surface.

"Mars is a dynamic world," says Christensen. "And for a generation, we've not been positioned to explore this part of it so thoroughly."

NASA Mars Curiosity Rover: MSL, where it's been and where it's going - video

The path the Mars Science Laboratory has taken, started in the plains of the Gale crater and ultimately will makes its way through rough roads on the way to a Mount Sharp climb. 

Curiosity project scientist John Grotzinger explains.

Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech

NASA Mars Curiosity Rover Explores 'Yellowknife Bay'

The NASA Mars rover Curiosity used its left Navigation Camera (NavCam) to record this view of the step down into a shallow depression called "Yellowknife Bay." 

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The NASA Mars rover Curiosity this week is driving within a shallow depression called "Yellowknife Bay," providing information to help researchers choose a rock to drill.

Using Curiosity's percussive drill to collect a sample from the interior of a rock, a feat never before attempted on Mars, is the mission's priority for early 2013.

After the powdered-rock sample is sieved and portioned by a sample-processing mechanism on the rover's arm, it will be analyzed by instruments inside Curiosity.

Yellowknife Bay is within a different type of terrain from what the rover has traversed since landing inside Mars' Gale Crater on Aug. 5, PDT (Aug. 6, UTC).

The terrain Curiosity has entered is one of three types that intersect at a location dubbed "Glenelg," chosen as an interim destination about two weeks after the landing.

MSL's percussive drill

Curiosity reached the lip of a 2-foot (half-meter) descent into Yellowknife Bay with a 46-foot (14-meter) drive on Dec. 11.

The next day, a drive of about 86 feet (26.1 meters) brought the rover well inside the basin.

Mast Camera (Mastcam)

The team has been employing the Mast Camera (Mastcam) and the laser-wielding Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) for remote-sensing studies of rocks along the way.

On Dec. 14, Curiosity drove about 108 feet (32.8 meters) to reach rock targets of interest called "Costello" and "Flaherty."

Researchers used the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) at the end of the rover's arm to examine the targets.

Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI)

After finishing those studies, the rover drove again on Dec. 17, traveling about 18 feet (5.6 meters) farther into Yellowknife Bay.

That brings the mission's total driving distance to 0.42 mile (677 meters) since Curiosity's landing.

One additional drive is planned this week before the rover team gets a holiday break.

Curiosity will continue studying the Martian environment from its holiday location at the end point of that drive within Yellowknife Bay.

The mission's plans for most of 2013 center on driving toward the primary science destination, a 3-mile-high (5-kilometer) layered mound called Mount Sharp.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project (MSL) is using Curiosity during a two-year prime mission to assess whether areas inside Gale Crater ever offered a habitable environment for microbes.

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity breaks Tintina rock reveals dazzling white interior

When Curiosity drove over Tintina, the rock broke apart and exposed a fresh, bright white surface

A rock crushed under the Curiosity Mars rover's wheels has dazzled mission scientists in more ways than one.

Mars is supposed to be the Red Planet, but the rock - dubbed "Tintina" - is a brilliant shade of white.

The unusual colour indicates the presence of hydrated minerals that formed when water flowed through the robot's landing site in ancient times.

Water-bearing minerals in Tintina and elsewhere add to the growing catalogue of water evidence at this location.

Rover team members have been presenting mission findings at the 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in The Woodlands, Texas.

It was also announced that the rover has suffered another computer glitch; Curiosity had already been recovering from a memory problem discovered earlier in the month.

The description of hydrated minerals at Gale Crater follows an announcement last week that Curiosity had found clay minerals in a rock it had drilled.

These clays indicate formation in, or substantial alteration by, neutral water.

That is significant for showing that conditions on the Red Planet could have supported life in the distant past, because many rocks studied previously were probably deposited in acidic water.

Speaking here in The Woodlands, near Houston, chief scientist John Grotzinger described Curiosity's landing site as the first truly habitable environment found on Mars.

"What we're really excited about is that this is the first time we've been able to follow through with a whole suite of different measurements that really demonstrate the place we found at Gale Crater was a very viable, habitable environment," he reported.

Prof Grotzinger added that the team "felt really good" about the Martian location.

The one-tonne Nasa rover has been exploring Gale Crater, near the Martian equator, since touching down in August 2012. It drove over Tintina on 17 January, breaking it open to expose the dazzling white interior.

"This is one of the brightest and whitest things we've seen with the Mastcam at the Gale Crater site," said Melissa Rice, from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), in Pasadena.

"This rock, Tintina, has a very strong hydration signal that corresponds to all that white material we see inside the rock. But that hydration signal doesn't show up anywhere else in the image.

"The first time we tried to take the image [of Tintina], it saturated the detector, because we had no idea we'd have something so bright," said Jim Bell, from Arizona State University in Tempe.

Using filters on the rover's Mast camera (Mastcam) and an instrument which shoots neutrons into the ground to probe for hydrogen, researchers have detected more hydrated minerals near the clay-bearing rock than at locations Curiosity visited earlier in its mission.

Melissa Rice explained: "What Mastcam is seeing is water that is bound in the mineral structure of the rocks. This water is left over from a previous wet era and is now trapped and preserved in these hydrated minerals."

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity: Self portrait at Rocknest

On the 84th and 85th Martian days of the NASA Mars rover Curiosity's mission on Mars (Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, 2012), NASA's Curiosity rover used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to capture dozens of high-resolution images to be combined into self-portrait images of the rover.

The mosaic shows the rover at "Rocknest," the spot in Gale Crater where the mission's first scoop sampling took place. 

Four scoop scars can be seen in the regolith in front of the rover. A fifth scoop was collected later.

Self-portraits like this one document the state of the rover and allow mission engineers to track changes over time, such as dust accumulation and wheel wear. 

Due to its location on the end of the robotic arm, only MAHLI (among the rover's 17 cameras) is able to image some parts of the craft, including the port-side wheels.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity: Complex Chemistry at Rocknest

This is a view of the third (left) and fourth (right) trenches made by the 1.6-inch-wide scoop on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity in October 2012. 

The image shows some of the properties of the "Rocknest" wind drift sand. The upper surface of the drift is covered by coarse sand grains approximately 0.02 to 0.06 inches in size. Beneath the crust surface is finer sand, which is darker brown.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity can’t yet confirm any organic compounds on the Red Planet, NASA scientists said today--but the rover is seeing some intriguing chemicals, which will lead to further careful analysis about whether its home in Gale Crater could have played host to life.

“SAM has no definitive detection to report of organic compounds,” said Paul Mahaffy, the principal investigator for the SAM instrument, which stands for Sample Analysis at Mars.

The instrument did see some carbon-containing material--it’s just not clear whether the carbon in it comes from Mars, or whether Curiosity toted it from Earth.

What’s more, at least some of the detected material was most likely created in chemical reactions inside Curiosity’s belly, as the SAM instrument’s oven baked sand samples.

The results mark the first soil sample analysis from the SAM lab suite, the most complex chemistry lab ever sent to another world. “We really consider this a terrific milestone,” Mahaffy said at a news conference Monday.

The presence of perchlorate may be the biggest news from the press conference, which kicked off the day at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in San Francisco.

The Mars Phoenix lander also saw evidence of this chlorine-oxygen compound, which could conceivably be used as an energy source by Martian microbes.

The analysis of these chemicals--which involves baking samples inside SAM’s oven and measuring the vapors that come out--in and of itself created new chemicals which the sensitive instruments picked up. Among those newly formed chemicals were some chlorinated methane compounds.

The chlorine is from Mars, Mahaffy said. The carbon’s origin is still unclear. Scientists will try to figure it out by measuring isotope ratios and making other measurements.

Other results from Curiosity’s first few months on Mars include some analysis of the soil and rocks, which are apparently very similar in both chemical composition and appearance to rocks in other spots on the planet.

The Pathfinder, Spirit and Opportunity rovers saw very similar soil in different locations. At Curiosity’s present location, Rocknest, a site in Gale Crater, the soil is about half volcanic material and half crystalline materials, like glass.

Interestingly, the water bound up in this soil is much, much heavier than water in Earth’s oceans, Mahaffy said.

Scientists, Curiosity followers and Marsphiles around the world eagerly awaited Monday’s announcement because of earlier rumours and speculation that the rover team was about to share something “Earth-shaking.”

Curiosity is not designed to find life, just evidence of environments that could have played host to it at some point.

Finding organic molecules would be an interesting step toward an eventual life-finding experiment. Organic compounds in this case means carbon-containing complex molecules, not something alive (or formerly alive).

These compounds rain down on all terrestrial planets and are found throughout space, and they do not necessarily indicate the presence of life.

For one small drift of sand, the SAM and CheMin (for Chemistry and Mineralogy) instruments did a whole lot of work, said Curiosity’s project scientist, John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH) in Pasadena.

“We used almost every part of our science payload examining this drift,” he said in a statement.

A couple weeks ago, Grotzinger was quoted in a story by NPR saying some freshly downloaded data from SAM would be “one for the history books.”

This statement created great speculation about what the results could be, although the agency tried to manage the expectations downwards.

Grotzinger said today he was misunderstood, and that he meant that the continuity of data from SAM, and the mission as a whole, would be historic in its breadth and depth.

“I’ve learned that you have to be careful about what you say and even more careful about how you say it,” he told reporters Monday. “We work at the speed of science. The rest of the world works at the speed of Instagram.”

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity: MAHLI Image of Rover Wheels and a Destination

This view of the three left wheels of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity combines two images that were taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 34th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Sept. 9, 2012).

In the distance is the lower slope of Mount Sharp.

The camera is located in the turret of tools at the end of Curiosity's robotic arm.

A photo of the calibration target for the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) aboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, taken by that camera on Mars.

The calibration target includes colour references, a metric bar graphic, a 1909 VDB Lincoln penny, and a stair-step pattern for depth calibration.

The penny is a nod to geologists' tradition of placing a coin or other object of known scale as a size reference in close-up photographs of rocks.

The Sol 34 imaging by MAHLI was part of a week-long set of activities for characterizing the movement of the arm in Mars conditions.

The main purpose of Curiosity's MAHLI camera is to acquire close-up, high-resolution views of rocks and soil at the rover's Gale Crater field site.

The camera is capable of focusing on any target at distances of about 0.8 inch (2.1 centimeters) to infinity, providing versatility for other uses, such as views of the rover itself from different angles.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity: Making tracks and Exercising it's robotic arm

NASA's Curiosity rover is having a few days break from travelling to give its arm a work out.

The rover, which has so far driven 358 feet (109 metres) from its landing site, is making its way across Gale Crater.

Having covered about one fourth of the distance to Glenelg, which is 400 metres for the rover's landing site, Curiosity paused on flat ground and extended its 7 foot (2.1 metre) arm which operates a number of Curiosity's tools.

Michael Watkins, the mission manager, explained: "We knew at some point we were going to need to stop and take a week or so for these characterisation activities. For these checkouts, we need to turn to a particular angle in relation to the sun and on flat ground. We could see before the latest drive that this looked like a perfect spot to start these activities."

We're still learning how to use the rover. It's such a complex machine -- the learning curve is steep
Joy Crisp, JPL

"These activities are important to get a better understanding for how the arm functions after the long cruise to Mars and in the different temperature and gravity of Mars, compared to earlier testing on Earth," said Daniel Limonadi.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity extended its robotic arm

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity extended its robotic arm on Aug. 20, 2012, for the first time on Mars and used its Navigation Camera (Navcam) to capture this view of the extended arm. 

The view is a mosaic of low-resolution thumbnail images returned to Earth a few hours after the activity on Mars. 

Higher resolution versions were to follow. 

The 7-foot-long (2.1-meter-long) arm maneuvers a turret of tools including a camera, a drill, a spectrometer, a scoop and mechanisms for sieving and portioning samples of powdered rock and soil. 

Numbers around the edge are degrees of the compass and degrees below or above horizontal. 

Curiosity landed on Mars two weeks ago to begin a two-year mission using 10 instruments to assess whether a carefully chosen study area inside Gale Crater has ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. 

The Space Division of MDA Information Systems Inc. built the robotic arm in Pasadena. 

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA MARS HiRISE Image: Oblique View of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater

This image was acquired 24 hours after MSL landed to locate the hardware on the surface.

The colour strip didn't cover the hardware, but does provide a spectacular oblique view of the central mound or "Mount Sharp" (Aeolis Mons).

The viewing angle is 45 degrees, like looking out an airplane window. The subimage has been rotated 90 degrees to provide this perspective.

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity: Panoramic view of gale Crater

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity: Panoramic view of gale Crater

NASA Mars: Gale Crater

This view of Gale Crater is derived from a combination of data from three Mars orbiters.

The view is looking straight down on the crater from orbit. Gale Crater is 96 miles (154 kilometers) in diameter.

Mount Sharp rises about 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) above the floor of Gale Crater.

Stratification on Mount Sharp suggests the mountain is a surviving remnant of an extensive series of deposits that were laid down after a massive impact that excavated Gale Crater more than 3 billion years ago.

The layers offer a history book of sequential chapters recording environmental conditions when each stratum was deposited.

During a prime mission lasting nearly two years after landing, Curiosity will use 10 instruments to investigate whether this area of Mars has ever offered conditions favorable for life, including the chemical ingredients for life.

The image combines elevation data from the High Resolution Stereo Camera on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter, image data from the Context Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and color information from Viking Orbiter imagery.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/MSSS