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Mars Rover Curiosity Drills 1st Hole into Huge Martian Mountain
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has taken its first bite out of the giant mountain that it crossed interplanetary space to explore.
On Wednesday (Sept. 24), the 1-ton Curiosity rover drilled 2.6 inches (6.7 centimeters) into an outcrop at the base of the towering Mount Sharp, which rises 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) into the Martian sky. Curiosity collected samples of powdered rock, with the aim of delivering them to the rover's onboard instruments for analysis.

"This drilling target is at the lowest part of the base layer of the mountain, and from here we plan to examine the higher, younger layers exposed in the nearby hills," Curiosity deputy project scientist Ashwin Vasavada, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. "This first look at rocks we believe to underlie Mount Sharp is exciting because it will begin to form a picture of the environment at the time the mountain formed, and what led to its growth."

By Mike Wall, Senior Writer, September 26, 2014
http://www.space.com/
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