Nasa’s Curiosity Mars rover has finally drilled deep enough into a rock to acquire a powdered sample for analysis.
The fine grey material from the 6cm-hole will be sieved and inspected before being delivered to the robot’s onboard labs in the coming days.
It will represent a historic first in planetary exploration - never before has the interior of a rock on another world been probed in such a way.
The US space agency said the drilling was an immense achievement.
"This is the biggest milestone accomplishment for the Curiosity team since the sky-crane landing last August, another proud day for America," said John Grunsfeld, Nasa’s associate administrator for science.
Drilling is absolutely central to the rover’s mission in Gale Crater, a deep bowl sited on Mars’ equator.
Curiosity is investigating whether past environments at this location could ever have supported life, and getting inside rocks to analyse their make-up will provide some of the most telling evidence.
The Great Pyramid of Giza as a monument of creation - Part 2: Water Element 2013 06 19
The Sphinx is not a mythical creature from Egyptian mythology and no ’half man/half lion’, but a lying, guardian lion who was worshiped. At the time of the life-giving floods of the Nile, the Sun and the constellation of Leo came both above the horizon in the east, and therefore the Sphinx was called the ’Guardian of the Sun’. In ...
So It Begins: Darpa Sets Out to Make Computers That Can Teach Themselves 2013 06 18 The Pentagon’s blue-sky research agency is readying a nearly four-year project to boost artificial intelligence systems by building machines that can teach themselves — while making it easier for ordinary schlubs like us to build them, too.
When Darpa talks about artificial intelligence, it’s not talking about modeling computers after the human brain. That path fell out of favor among computer ...
Atacama Humanoid: Stanford-Geneticist Says Specimen "not worth scrutiny" 2013 06 18 The documentary SIRIUS has intrigued and shocked many, and has stirred debate about the scientific findings regarding the ’Atacama Humanoid’.
Recently, daily German science news site GreWi.de followed up with Dr. Garry Nolan, the Stanford geneticist that headed the investigation into the mummified remains.
grenz|wissenschaft-aktuell reports:
Since the documentary movie "Sirius" showed the first results of an investigation of a just 15 ...
The Illuminati Depopulation Agenda 2013 06 18 While the global elite construct underground bunkers, eat organic and hoard seeds in Arctic vaults; the global poor are being slowly starved thanks to high commodity prices and poisoned with genetically modified (GMO) food. Austerity measures aimed largely at the poor are being imposed on all the nations of the world. Weather events grow more deadly and brushfire wars more ...
Ron Paul on Syria: This Is How Vietnam and Iraq Started 2013 06 18
President Barack Obama’s pledge to initiate a limited operation in Syria will likely escalate into a full-blown war, with Americans supporting a rebel cause that is backed by al-Qaida, retired Texas Rep. Ron Paul is arguing.
"The president has opened a can of worms that will destroy his presidency and possibly destroy this country. Another multibillion dollar war has begun," Paul ...
The Great Pyramid of Giza as a monument of creation - Part 2: Water Element
So It Begins: Darpa Sets Out to Make Computers That Can Teach Themselves
Atacama Humanoid: Stanford-Geneticist Says Specimen "not worth scrutiny"
The Illuminati Depopulation Agenda
Ron Paul on Syria: This Is How Vietnam and Iraq Started