NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Bites and Swallows First Soil Sample

Three bite marks left in the Martian ground by the scoop on the robotic arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity are visible in this image taken by the rover's right Navigation Camera during the mission's 69th Martian day, or sol (Oct. 15, 2012). 

The third scoopful, collected on that sol, left the bite or pit farthest to the right. Each of the three bites is about 2 inches (5 centimeters) wide.

CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has swallowed its first tiny bite of Martian soil, after standing down for a spell while scientists checked out some strange bright bits in the dirt.

The $2.5 billion Curiosity rover ingested the minuscule sample. which contains about as much material as a baby aspirin.

The soil has been successfully delivered to the rover's Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument, or CheMin, mission scientists announced.

"We are crossing a significant threshold for this mission by using CheMin on its first sample," Curiosity lead scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said in a statement.

This image shows part of the small pit or bite created when NASA's Mars rover Curiosity collected its second scoop of Martian soil at a sandy patch called "Rocknest."

This image was taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on Curiosity's arm during the 69th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Oct. 15, 2012).

CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA Mars Curiosity Rover: Martian Soil Samples taken and Shaken - Video

NASA’s Curiosity rover is seen in the video above clutching and then vigorously shaking a tiny bit of Mars in its scoop.

Curiosity is currently in an area known as the Rocknest, where it has been picking up fine Martian sand and vibrating it at a tooth-rattling speed to remove any overfill and help engineers identify and discard large pebbles.

Soon, the rover will also be vibrating the material through its interior chemical testing systems to sand blast them and remove a residual oily film from Earth.

The equipment is so sensitive it could easily detect even a tiny smidgen of Earth dust, which would skew any results looking at Mars’ chemical makeup.

Engineers are planning to have Curiosity spit out its current sandy haul, then scoop and respit two more times to completely clean everything out.

After that, the rover will be ready to deliver a half-baby-aspirin-sized sample to its laboratory equipment, housed inside its body, for detailed chemical analysis.

Scientists think that this sample will be fairly boring, showing nothing they don’t expect, but will help them calibrate their instruments for future exploration.

Curiosity’s MastCams captured this film at about eight frames per second, though the full 256-frame video includes interpolated frames to bring it up to a 32-frame-per-second video.

Video: JPLnews/Youtube