"Curiosity Rover’s First Bite of Mount Sharp”

On September 24^th, the NASA's Mars rover Curiosity collected its first taste of Mount Sharp. Mount Sharp, with a height of 3.4 miles, had been the rover Curiosity’s main destination since it was launched in November 2011. On Sept. 22^th, the rover made a test drilling to a target rock on an outcrop at the mountain’s base called “Pahrump Hills”. The objective was to measure its suitability for sample collection. The test resulted satisfactory, encouraging the mission team to proceed with a full-on drilling operation on Wednesday, Sept. 24^th. The rover drilled about 2.6 inches (6.7 centimeters) deep into the basal–layer of the mountain and collected a powered-rock sample. Curiosity's robotic arm was used for close-up inspection of distinctive features on the nearby surface of the rock. The team now hopes to gain information about composition of fluids at that location from long ago and its progressive composition since the mountain was formed. "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." said Curiosity Deputy Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada of JPL.

The next steps of the mission is to run the sample through parts of the rover’s internal chemical lab.  The Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument, a tool in Curiosity’s laboratory, would hit the powdered rock with X-rays to examine its mineral structure and to reveal the basic composition of the rock. Further, the temperature under which it formed and even the acidity of water that may have altered the rock. Then, the sample runs to the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument suite (SAM), which will use a mass spectrometer to look at elemental abundances and perhaps even age-date the rock.

Chm 1045 Fall 2014 Honors Project:

Engineering Group: John Sevilla, Jazmina Olivas, Gabriela Barrera, Juan Albrecht