* Astronomy

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RE: Mars Science Laboratory mission

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Mars Science Laboratory was launched on the 26th November, 2011

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CheMin

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RE: Mars Science Laboratory mission

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Curiosity Rover Collects Fourth Scoop of Martian Soil

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shook a scoopful of dusty sand inside its sample-handling mechanism on Sol 75 (Oct. 21, 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 Oct. 22 and plans to analyse another sample from the same scoopful with the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument this week.
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NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover Report #11 -- October 19, 2012

Spoiler

A NASA's Mars Curiosity rover team member gives an update on developments and status of the planetary exploration mission.

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Curiosity Mars rover starts 'to eat dirt'

Nasa's Curiosity rover has ingested its first Martian soil sample.
The robot has taken a pinch of dust into the CheMin instrument, one of its two big onboard analytical tools.
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Mystery particles on Mars revealed by rover's litter

Sifting through soil on Mars, NASA's rover Curiosity paused to take a picture - and exposed its own bad behaviour. The shot included a bright object lying in the Martian dirt, and a closer look suggests that the rover is guilty of littering: it appears the object is a piece of plastic wrapper that has fallen from the robot.
The discovery has put a twist on the rover's current mission to scrub out its soil scoop and take its first sample of Martian dirt for analysis. More bright specks of unidentified matter in the soil - at first thought to be from Curiosity shedding - may actually be Martian in origin, although what they might be is a mystery.
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Curiosity Preparing for Second Scoop

On Sol 65 (Oct. 11, 2012) of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity completed several activities in preparation for collecting its second scoop of soil. Like the first scoop, the next will come from a ripple of sand and dust at "Rocknest," and will be used for cleaning interior surfaces of the sample-handling chambers on the arm.
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Curiosity rover finds 'unusual rock'

It was expected to be just another lump of dull basalt, but the first rock examined up close by Nasa's Mars rover proved to be a little more interesting.
The pyramidal object, nicknamed "Jake Matijevic" after a recently passed mission engineer, had a composition not seen on the planet before. Scientists have likened it to some unusual but well known rocks on Earth.
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