Drilling On Mars Out of Curiosity—A Sharp Step Towards Answers

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Continuing its mission to determine whether or not the atmosphere and environment of ancient Mars may have been a suitable host to cellular life forms, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity bore into the crust to find its answers late last week, on Wednesday Sept. 24. Utilizing its accessory drill piece for the fourth time since it first arrived in August 2012, Curiosity was able to acquire its first samples of the powdered Martian rock, drilling only 2.6 inches into the crust of the towering Mount Sharp.

Rising 3.5 miles high into the Martian skyline, Mount Sharp is the peak at the center of Gale Crater of great interest to NASA researchers. Looking forward to the analyses of the powdered samples collected this past Wednesday, researchers are hopeful to not only gain a glimpse of Mars' past atmospheric environment but also understand how the mountain came to be.

"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 Scientists, Ashwin Vasavada says. "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."

While researchers would assuredly like to get their hands on the samples back home on Earth, the powdered rock samples excavated from Mount Sharp will be analyzed through Curiosity's on-board chemistry laboratory. Though in-depth analyses will not be likely achieved on the limited equipment carried by the rover, the laboratory will be able to identify and interpret the mineral composition of the samples.

While Curiosity has drilled into three other locations since landing in 2012, researchers at NASA are particular eager to see the interesting chemical composition of rock samples from Mount Sharp as the specimens appear far redder than others before it. With an abundance of stratified rock layers that formed throughout millions of years of change on Mars, the newest location at the base of Mount Sharp is the most fascinating to date for planetary geologists. And although analyses have yet to arrive from the rover's laboratory, NASA researchers are certain that the answers they're looking for lie just beyond the ridge.

Only touching the tip of the iceberg on the largely unexplored planet, researchers are eager to travel with Curiosity to learn a lot more about the Martian environment, and how life may have come to be on the red planet.