'Confidence Hills' Drill Powder in Scoop . photonado

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'Confidence Hills' Drill Powder in Scoop

This image from NASA's Curiosity rover shows a sample of powdered rock extracted by the rover's drill from the "Confidence Hills" target -- the first rock drilled after Curiosity reached the base of Mount Sharp in September 2014. The image was taken after the sample was transferred from the drill to the rover's scoop. In subsequent steps, the sample was sieved, and portions of it delivered to the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument (see PIA19038 ). The scoop is 1.8 inches (4.5 centimeters) wide. The image was obtained by Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument on Sept. 28, 2014, or Sol 762, Curiosity's 762nd Martian day of operations. The image has been white-balanced to show what the sample would look like under daytime lighting conditions on Earth. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover. Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates the rover's Mastcam. More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .

Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Image released by NASA on 2014-11-04 as catalog id PIA19037