Topic: Sample Analysis at Mars instrument

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover data reveals remaining atmosphere on Mars is still active

April 9, 2013 |

Written by Guy Webster
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Vienna, Austria – Mars has lost much of its original atmosphere, but what’s left remains quite active, recent findings from NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity indicate. Rover team members reported diverse findings today at the European Geosciences Union 2013 General Assembly, in Vienna.

Evidence has strengthened this month that Mars lost much of its original atmosphere by a process of gas escaping from the top of the atmosphere.

This image shows the first holes into rock drilled by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, with drill tailings around the holes plus piles of powdered rock collected from the deeper hole and later discarded after other portions of the sample had been delivered to analytical instruments inside the rover. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

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NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity Instruments begins to analyze first sample of rock powder on Mars

February 26, 2013 |

Written by Guy Webster
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Two compact laboratories inside NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity have ingested portions of the first sample of rock powder ever collected from the interior of a rock on Mars.

Curiosity science team members will use the laboratories to analyze the rock powder in the coming days and weeks.

The rover’s Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) and Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instruments received portions of the sample on Friday and Saturday, February 22nd and 23rd, respectively, and began inspecting the powder.

The left Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity took this image of Curiosity’s sample-processing and delivery tool just after the tool delivered a portion of powdered rock into the rover’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. This Collection and Handling for In-situ Martian Rock Analysis (CHIMRA) tool delivered portions of the first sample ever acquired from the interior of a rock on Mars into both SAM and the rover’s Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument. (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

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NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has drilled first Rock Sample on Mars

February 22, 2013 |

Written by Guy Webster
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has relayed new images that confirm it has successfully obtained the first sample ever collected from the interior of a rock on another planet. No rover has ever drilled into a rock beyond Earth and collected a sample from its interior.

Transfer of the powdered-rock sample into an open scoop was visible for the first time in images received Wednesday at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA.

This image from NASA’s Curiosity rover shows the first sample of powdered rock extracted by the rover’s drill. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

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NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover finishes analyzing it’s first Martian Soil Sample

December 4, 2012 |

Written by Guy Webster
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has used its full array of instruments to analyze Martian soil for the first time, and found a complex chemistry within the Martian soil. Water and sulfur and chlorine-containing substances, among other ingredients, showed up in samples Curiosity’s arm delivered to an analytical laboratory inside the rover.

Detection of the substances during this early phase of the mission demonstrates the laboratory’s capability to analyze diverse soil and rock samples over the next two years. Scientists also have been verifying the capabilities of the rover’s instruments.

This is a view of the third (left) and fourth (right) trenches made by the 1.6-inch-wide (4-centimeter-wide) scoop on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity in October 2012. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

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NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover analysis reveals clues to Mar’s loss of Atmosphere

November 3, 2012 |

Written by Guy Webster
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s car-sized rover, Curiosity, has taken significant steps toward understanding how Mars may have lost much of its original atmosphere.

Learning what happened to the Martian atmosphere will help scientists assess whether the planet ever was habitable. The present atmosphere of Mars is 100 times thinner than Earth’s.

A set of instruments aboard the rover has ingested and analyzed samples of the atmosphere collected near the “Rocknest” site in Gale Crater where the rover is stopped for research.

This picture shows a lab demonstration of the measurement chamber inside the Tunable Laser Spectrometer, an instrument that is part of the Sample Analysis at Mars investigation on NASA’s Curiosity rover. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity’s fourth scoop of Martian Soil to be analyzed by Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument this week

October 23, 2012 |

Written by Guy Webster
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity shook a scoopful of dusty sand inside its sample-handling mechanism on Sol 75 (October 21st, 2012) as the third scrubbing of interior surfaces of the mechanism.

The rover team is instructing the rover to deliver a sieved sample from this scoopful — the mission’s fourth — onto Curiosity’s observation tray on October 22nd and plans to analyze another sample from the same scoopful with the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument later this week.

The Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity used its laser and spectrometers to examine what chemical elements are in a drift of Martian sand during the mission’s 74th Martian day, or sol (October 20th, 2012). Image (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP/LPGN/CNRS)

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