Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Curiosity: A Piece of Itself...

Scientists studying photos taken by Curiosity (currently working at Rocknest) noticed something odd a few days ago: a bright object of some sort right near the Martian rover.  The immediate suspicion was that something had fallen off the rover, and that might not be good.  So they directed the high-powered lens of the Chemcam to take a closer look (see circled object at right).  They've now concluded that it was some insignificant piece of plastic, such as cable insulation.  It doesn't appear to indicate any sort of problem at all.

While it proved to be most useful, I don't think that this sort of use was what they had in mind for Chemcam :-)

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