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NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS / Will Pomerantz
A detail from the Curiosity rover's Mastcam system shows the rover's sampling scoop filled with Martian soil — and a tiny bright object in the foreground. The commentary was added by Will Pomerantz on Twitter. Check NASA's Photojournal for larger versions of the photo.
NASA's Curiosity rover dug up its first scoopful of sandy soil on Sunday and swished it around like a connoisseur tasting wine. But the long-anticipated sampling session had to be put on hold when Curiosity's handlers spotted a bright and tiny object nearby.
What the heck is it? A loose screw? A cigarette butt? A piece of Martian macaroni? The mystery lit up a few Twitter feeds this afternoon, but for now, the best hypothesis seems to be that it's a bit of plastic that fell off the rover.
Such droppings aren't unusual. "All the cool landers drop stuff on Mars," joked Sarah Milkovich, a member of the Curiosity team as well as the science team for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Her Twitter tweet included a link to a picture of hardware dropped onto the Martian surface by Phoenix Mars Lander back in 2008.
The Curiosity rover's Twitter account got into the act: "Team spotted bright object on ground near me — possibly a piece of rover hardware? Gathering more data," she tweeted. Even Sarcastic Rover chimed in: "Did anyone lose an earring on Mars? Because I may have found it. Or else I'm falling apart. But let's hope earring."
Seriously, though ... The Planetary Society's Emily Lakdawalla turned up a picture from Curiosity's ChemCam imager that seemed to show a tiny shred of plastic wrap — perhaps a bit of the insulating tape that's used all over the rover.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / LANL / CNES / IRAP
A picture from the ChemCam imager on NASA's Curiosity rover appears to show a shred of plastic at the center. Is that what the tiny mystery object will turn out to be? Stay tuned.
NASA's Curiosity Rover took a break from its scooping mission on Mars after a bright object was found on the ground. While officials think it came from the rover, the scooping has been halted until officials determine what it is. TODAY's Natalie Morales reports.
Stopping the scooping
The object was spotted just as Curiosity was using its scoop to pick up Martian soil from a sandy site known as "Rocknest." The plan was to shovel and shake the light soil to clear out the sample collection system mounted on the end of Curiosity's 7-foot-long (2.1-meter-long) robotic arm, known as CHIMRA (Collection and Handling for In-situ Martian Rock Analysis). But today, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported that Curiosity's team refrained from using the robotic arm in order to check out the weird object.
"Curiosity is acquiring additional imaging of the object to aid the team in identifying the object and assessing possible impact, if any, to sampling activities," JPL said in its mission status report.
As Milkovich noted, Mars surface probes will occasionally spot anomalous bits of stuff such as the "bunny ears" and the "Martian macaroni" seen by the Opportunity rover. These cases have generally been explained as bits of fabric or metal left behind by the rover, and it seems likely that the same will be said of Curiosity's "cigarette butt."
Such debris is harmless — but if even a bit of it happened to get into the rover's sensitive chemistry labs, that could ruin the scientific readings. Even before the rover was launched, scientists worried that the plastic tape would throw off the rover's chemistry experiments. That's why Curiosity's team is being so careful about what to do next.
Watch a time-lapse video of NASA's Mars Curiosity shaking a scoopful of Martian dirt as a practice run for its soil analysis system.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
An image from Curiosity's left navigation camera shows a 1.8-inch-wide (4.5-centimeter-wide) divot in a sand dune at the "Rocknest" site on Mars, left behind when the rover removed a scoopful of soil.
Clearing Curiosity's throat
Eventually, the sand scooping will continue, either at Rocknest or another site. The first few samples won't undergo any chemical analysis. Instead, the material will be shaken around and sent through Curiosity's sorting and sampling chambers to clear out any schmutz that's left over from the rover's journey to Mars.
Daniel Limonadi, an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told reporters last week that the palate-cleansing was required even though the hardware is "super-squeaky-clean when it's delivered and assembled" at JPL. "By virtue of its just being on Earth, you get a kind of residual oily film that is impossible to avoid," he said.
Once the soil has been shaken and stirred through the chambers, it'll be ejected from the mechanism and plopped back onto the Martian surface. "We effectively use it to rinse out our mouth three times and then kind of spit out," Limonadi said.
When the palate-cleansing is complete, in about a week or so, CHIMRA will start delivering samples to Curiosity's two onboard chemical labs, known as Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM; and the Chemical and Mineralogy experiment, or CheMin. Today's mission status report from NASA notes that those two instruments "will play crucial roles in evaluating whether the study area has ever had a favorable environment for microbial life."
Determining whether Mars was potentially habitable in ancient times is the prime goal for Curiosity's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission. The nuclear-powered rover landed in Mars' Gale Crater on Aug. 5 and is on its way to a geologically interesting spot called Glenelg, where it's expected to use its percussive rock drill for the first time. After spending several weeks at Glenelg, Curiosity is due to turn around and head for a 3-mile-high (5-kilometer-high) mountain that is thought to preserve billions of years' worth of geological history.
The tread of Curiosity's tire resembles a Martian bootprint. NBC's Brian Williams reports.
Update for 3:20 p.m. ET Oct. 9: The real experts on the Curiosity mission are leaning toward the plastic-tape hypothesis. Get the full scoop here.
More about Curiosity's mission:
- Mars rover gets set for its first scoop
- Curiosity rover 'checks in ' to Foursquare
- Curiosity is driving through dried-up riverbed
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
Thanks for the scoop on the rover "Curiosity" scoop .
Nice video .
Amazingly clear .
It's a pop top from a beer can. They're known to last 8.4 billion years.
you know, if we're leaving trash there, and billions of years from no when we're long gone another intelligent earthling race makes it to mars and finds it, it's gonna look like Martians are real.
Obviously it's Dilithium Crystals, are ya all blind?
If they're smart enough to make it to Mars, they'll be smart enough to do a spectroscopic analysis and figure out it originated from earth.
That is NOT a CIGARETTE butt.
Curiosity - "Send Twinkies!"
Dollars to donuts, whatever it is was MADE IN CHINA.
Its a Burger King wrapper.Probably chicken tenders.
re: the tiny shiny thing:
It's a little silver skinned Martian with glowing eyes and thinking it's found Mom.
More Martian pictures please!
Nothing like good ole Duct Tape to hold things together!!!!!
"Mom! Dad! It's Evil, don't touch it!"
I wonder what the protocol would be if they spotted an insect or worm wriggling around on the surface.
Surely, they would reveal it to the public, no? Or is there another, darker protocol?
Do you think the US would casually show shots of a worm they dug up on Mars, or would there be a lockdown, and high level meetings about the discovery, before the shots were "streamed" onto NASA's website? I
can guaran-fricking-tee you they would debate this before telling the public anything. Why? The implications of religious fall-out alone at home and abroad would be huge. Look at all it takes to have millions of Muslims rallying, storming embassies, and burning things in the streets. How do you think they would react to the "infidels" in the US broadcasting pictures of alien life? Not very well.
One day, all the cheap stuff will say "MADE ON EARTH".
excuse me....who are they jive'n...with that cosmic debris...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AV_0saAy6A
What if Curiosity digs down and discovers that it is just the tip of an antenna on an ancient Mayan space probe? It would put a whole new spin on that December 21st thing!
Could it be the top of a golf tee ? Turn the camera around , and see if it can find the flag for the next hole .
The picture is so clear it's amazing that it's taken from another planet. Soo cool.
It's GOLD!!! (Time for another goldrush)
Another planet? The pictures are being taken in a remote desert area in Nevada.
If Curiosity is leaving bits of itself on the virgin Martian landscape, it should be renamed "The Rocknest Monster."
@mahovy, Yes and Barrack Obama is really a robot built by the chinese and George Bush was an alien from the planet Goran....everything is a gov't conspiracy. Those jeans you are wearing have secret chips in them to tell the gov't where you are at all times and don't even get me started on those t-shirts. The gov't also masterminded 9/11 and pearl harbor and WW2 and WW1 and everything that ever happened ever.
Maybe this is a clue for where to find Al Capone's "Lost Gold" or where the mob buried Jimmy Hoffa...
Ooohhh... Shiny! Must pick up and keep!
Looks like garbage to me...
ooohhh!!! Shiny!
Sparkly, girls love sparkly.
Cosmic garbage, but still, nothing to get too excited about...
Ah those humans already leaving their trash behind.
Rover droppings?
Don't step in the exhaust.
looks like a metal shaving off of the rover
Its a pulltab.
LOL, I haven't seen a pull tab since the sixities
Don't think my first post went through so here it is again.
Jessiergrrl, if you remember pull tabs from the 60's you are showing your age.
Also read cheetah-822547 comment that pull tabs last 8.4 billion years.
Just wait till Rover tops that hill to see the space ship that the shinning thing fell off of.
Notice it will be found right before the elections so they can use the Martians in the voting count.
It's the pull tab that activated the battery pack inside Curiosity.
Republicans won't need it because they have Diebold.
Democrats won't need it because they have illegals.
Anybody make chains from the pull tabs?
Anybody remember beer cans without pull tabs? You had to use a can opener to punch holes? And the cans were made of steel rather than aluminum?
@TonyInDallas: Freshman year of college. It hung from the light fixture in my dorm room. Almost touched the floor.
Tony, how about before soda and beer came in cans, steel or otherwise? I think I saw my first Coke in a can (steel and no pop-top) in 1960, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
I found your discarded cans in GITMO summer 1968! Such a place found nowhere else in the universe. Obiwankenobi would be proud! Semper Fi or Fair Winds and Following Sails whichever the case maybe, tiredofhypocrites!
What do you mean "almost touched the floor"? I don't think you were trying hard enough.
Wait until the right gets wind of this. I smell a conspiracy in the brewing.
It will probably rival the conspiracy theories like 9/11, the second gunman on the grassy knoll, and that the landings on the Moon were faked.
We'll see...
I believe you've got port confused with starboard shipmate.
Only a Maroon would make this comment about politics in this story.
Rant in the mirror and save us.
Obama will blame it on Bush then.
Only a moron doesn't know the difference between "Maroon" and "Moron".
XGI, I take it you have never seen a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
"What a maroon" was one of his second most famous catch phrases.
XGI - it is not that RW-Hunter does not know the difference between Moron and Maroon, rather you have forgotten Bugs Bunny.
Mike didn't mean to step on your comment - I didn't pay close enough attention and see yours when I responded to XGI.
Only a moron would comment on something he does not understand.
Geek - You mean the left doesn't have any conspiracy kooks? Imagine that, amazing.
Actually my take is that the left has way more conspiracy kooks than the right.
wait wait is that a reflection of a pyramid
Democrats and Republicans both have their equal share of crazies in their midst. Now shut up with the politics.
LOL Looks like someone's discarded condom.
Exactly what size of condom do you use? Just sayin.. lol
Really? Yours are that small?
Diamond?
If it were to turn out to be a diamond we DeBeers would find a way to control Mars and prevent anyone from visiting. ANd probably try and take over JPL for infringing on their Diamond monopoly.
Its a "Mars" bar candy wrapper
*snerk*
Looks like a "Mars" candy wrapper
Of course NASA would never admit they have a base on Mars the Lockheed X-22A would get there easy.
It`s strange when you think about it. A million years from now after the human race is long gone an interplanatary traveler will be finding the trash we left behind. like on the moon
Doubtful. And why a million years from now? Why not a million years ago or tomorrow for that matter?
Mars rover distracted by shiny object
Gee, who knew it was human?
More like a cat.
One of the best headlines ever....
according to plato...mars and earth were very close at one time and travel between the planets were the norm...but one day a planet sized bollide came into our solar system and knocked mars into its' present day orbit killing all life...this bollide also caused the earth to wobble causing continents to rise and others to sink..this bollide then got captured by the suns' gravity and went into orbit ...it has a backward spin and is known as venus.
We can discard Plato, his hypothesis was limited to the knowledge of the past, there wasn't much. plato didn't know Mars was a planet or much less a bollide. Sound like you made that up just for the sake of posting something.
A planet is not a bollide, showing you don't know what's a bollide & a planet. And what you said that it went into orbit without taking into account how it was able to do so.
For reals - all knowledge is limited to the past, even scientific knowledge as once something is tested and proven it is in the past.
That statement is straight out of the book "Worlds In Collision" by Immanuel Velikovsky, except for the mention of Plato. If a Mars sized 'something' collided with Earth, life would cease to exist at least until all the pieces coalesced back into a planet.
He's posted that same "info" before.
ha! I also read 'Worlds in Confusion' by Asimov debunking Velikovsky. Venus, manna from heaven, conflating hydrocarbons with carbo-hydrates (well, they do sound similar! and if we can turn lead into gold, why not oil (or comet trailings) into bread!). A good read. Ah, fictional Velikovsky along side the hurtling moons of Barsoom. Our cat used to shed something fierce, and sometimes some surprises would turn up, just like on Mars.
It's obviously been dropped VERY recently. Otherwise, it would have some cosmic "dust" on it.
Truman why would it have 'cosmic' dust on it - to me that implies Mars is like the moon with little or no atmosphere - and Mars does have an atmosphere. Now if you had said Martian dust.....
Remember that there IS wind on Mars, which could uncover bits of raw metal. However, for a SHINY piece of metal to be exposed like this would have to mean it isn't able to oxidized.... now, it's been a while since my chemistry classes so someone will probably have to correct me, but the only metal I know of that oxidizes is Iron.... so this could possibly be titanium, aluminum or something along those lines. But, sadly, probably just a rover flake.
Okay,,,,,,MARTIAN dust!! Feel better?
Copper oxidizes as well. That's why the Statue of Liberty is green.
Pretty sure tin oxidizes. Also Lithium, sodium and potassium oxidize quickly - most metals oxidize to some level.
I think gold is the only metal that does not oxidize or react with other substances at all or very very slowly: That's why it's used in electronics, why gold crowns don't create weird tastes in your mouth and why, in archeological digs golden objects are pristine while ones made out of, say, silver, may completely be gone.
Thanks all who chipped in... been studying for a western civ test all day so my ability to remember high school classes (which were finished in 2004) is limited :)
I can only imagine if the rover found huge deposits of diamonds or gold on Mars. It would start a modern day gold rush and suddenly it would be highly profitable to send people, materials and to establish bases and cities to mine Mars for these resources. Eventually, after decades or centuries, Mars could be terraformed to support liquid water and a breathable atmosphere.
First you would need to invent a magnetosphere generator and a way to power it.
The movie is pretty cool. Congrats to the Rover...... but there is sure a lot of "trashy" comments about the "red tape" that Curiosity has generated. I guess NASA has to "clean up" its' act before we can get the real "scoop" on the story.... (snicker)
Gold isn't that valuable, but it is heaver than lead.
Exactly, why is this so important? My Faith in NASA continues to plunge through the floor boards.
This is not NEWS NASA no reason to even bring attention to it.
Maybe if NASA had independent oversight they would carry out real science instead of gawking at every little piece of metal or part they find on Mars.
Next
I am loving it. The photography is amazing. Too cool. Well worth it.
Magnum - maybe not important to you but obviously others find it interesting. Not all new has to be about politics, war or the economy. Also in a serious light it is IMHO newsworthy because we are continuing mankinds quest for knowledge and that "shiny object" could have been an improtan clue to the history of the solar system, and until it was investigated we did not know for sure. Until we "gawked" how were we to know - and please define for us real science and what is your basis for that definition?
And also the fact that the US space exploration is carried out in the public view is better than any other oversight there could be.
how do the 3 boobed ladies get there?
Over zealous plastic surgeons?
Amazing, amazing stuff!
I remember when the Earthlings in Ray Bradbury's THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES started leaving trash (beercans?), the real Martians and one astronaut seemed to be unhappy. Am I remembering the scifi story right?
FOR GOD'S SAKE, DON'T DRIVE OVER IT! You may get it wedged in one of the wheels and you'll be dragging a wheel for the rest of the mission!
LOL!
:-)
The plastic is on the ground, not melting, but staying still. The red soil is like the soil in Ethiopia, but little bit dry, and sandy. The tire mark is noted this time, but how about last time when the gadget visited the Mars?
And have the previous tire marks been found/noted this time? Has any plan tried to find the marks from previous visit?
And so far, there is no green. The color of the soil is red which may indicate the presence of iron oxides (Wikipedia). There is still no water.
Billie - If I remeber the story about the landing they are no where near where the other rovers were so it is doubtful they will find tire marks - and they might not anyway beacuse Mars does have winds unlike the moon. And while they have not found water (yet) they have found evidence of ancient water flows like an Earth dry riverbed.
Also most green on Earth is from plant material - at least I think it is - and plant material found on Mars would be an indication of LIFE. ANd if this were to be found the headline would be in huge print, would be breaking nes, and would probably cause a crisis with most religions.
Hollykb,
Just wondering why discovery of life on Mars would cause a crisis with most religions? Many religions believe in a creator and the bible talks about life on other worlds...so why would that create problem for many religions. The most troubling discovery for creationist would be the discovery of trans species fossils on Earth...non exist in any fossil evidence. You know the transformation of a fish to say an ape? The theory of evolution would indicate that these fossils should be found in abundance...yet not one yet. How curious.
If our solar system has life other than the Earth it would startle science to no end...but would not startle many religions. Just saying.
Next
IMHO - the discovery of life on Mars would call into question the Genesis story. Thats why I made the comment about life on Mars cause issues with many religions. I agree it would startle science to no end. WE could debate fossils and creationism until we are blue in the face just as we could debate religion. Now I have a question for you - where in the bible does it talk about life on other worlds?
There are plenty. Just look.
Whatever it is, if it is found to be valuable, you can bet we will have a manned mission to mars a LOT faster than planned.
+1 True that brother, true that.
This was the best comment.
I thank you Sir :)
Relax folks, it's just Duct Tape.
That, or a Martian condom wrapper.
It looks like part of an insect body to me, but hey isn't this fantastic?