Researchers at NASA say the Mars Curiosity rover has successfully placed Martian space rocks into its internal lab for analysis to search for clues of water.
In a statement released on Monday, NASA officials said the rover's "Chemistry and Mineralogy and Sample Analysis at Mars instruments" have successfully ingested the powdered rocks that were drilled from below the red planet's surface on Feb. 8. Officials added that the sample was placed inside the instruments over the weekend.
"Data from the instruments have confirmed the deliveries," Curiosity Mission Manager Jennifer Trosper of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement.
Researchers will now wait for the findings of the analyze which will take place over the next few days and weeks.
Curiosity is on Mars' Gale Crater and collected the sample from inside a rock known as "John Klein", named after a Mars Science Laboratory deputy project manager who died in 2011. The spacecraft was launched in November 2011 and landed on Mars successfully in August 2012
Throughout its mission researchers have been using Curiosity's ten specially designed instruments to study Mars' surface to determine if its environment was suitable for microbial life.
- Contribute to this Story:
- Send us a tip
- Send us a photo or video
- Suggest a correction
