Cautious Curiosity Throws Away Second Martian Soil Scoop

Curiosity rover discarded the second scoop of soil collected from the Martian surface and is getting ready to take the third scoop.

The rover resumed collecting its second scoop of soil on Oct. 12 in an area dubbed as "Rocknest." Earlier, mission scientists had halted the rover for few days from taking any more samples after they spotted a bright object on the Martian soil.

The soil sampling session was put on hold until the scientists were able to detect the object. They found the object to be some sort of plastic wrapper material, such as a tube used around a wire that could have fallen when the rover's robotic arm was lowered on to the Martian surface.

The rover resumed its work of collecting the second soil scoop on Oct. 12 and discarded the soil samples intentionally to avoid putting any other bright object in the rover's sample-processing mechanisms.

Scientists will command the Mars rover to take the third scoop. Further investigation of the bright particles, including some imaging, is planned for Sol 69 (Mars local mean solar time at Gale Crater, will end at 8:01 a.m., EDT), announced NASA.

The third scoop will be delivered to one of rover's internal analytical instruments called as Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) to analyze the mineral and chemical composition of the soil.

The fourth scoop of soil which will be collected later will be sent to both CheMin and another instrument called sample analysis at Mars (SAM) in order to analyze the chemical elements in the soil that could have supported life in the past.

After spending few weeks at "Rocknest" the car-sized rover will head to Glenelg, where three different terrains intersect. Curiosity will spend a month at the site before heading to its ultimate destination - Mount Sharp. It is a site with different sand compositions that can be identified with its color.

Curiosity landed successfully Aug. 5 on the Martian Gale crater. The rover is on a two year mission to detect if the environmental conditions on the red planet could have supported microbial life in the past.