NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has taken its first bite of Martian soil and dug up a mini-mystery for scientists: a bright white speck amid the reddish dirt.
The rover took its first scoops of soil earlier this week — samples of which will be analyzed to determine whether the Red Planet was ever favourable for microbial life — and found the odd fleck in a windblown and sandy area NASA has dubbed Rocknest.
It looks out of place, but scientists said Thursday it's likely native Martian material. It is only one millimetre in size and was spotted after the rover used its mechanical scoop to dig up some dust.
The discovery comes after the team found a 1.3 centimetre-long piece of light-toned material on Oct. 7, which they later determined was debris from the spacecraft itself. But the tiny white granule is likely not a foreign object, scientists said Thursday.
"We plan to learn more both about the spacecraft material and about the smaller, bright particles," said Curiosity project manager Richard Cook of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, in a statement.
"We will finish determining whether the spacecraft material warrants concern during future operations. The native Mars particles become fodder for the mission's scientific studies."
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