Mars rover Curiosity ends its drilling spree on the Red Planet after it finished collecting powdered rock samples of "Windjana," or the slab of sandstone that piqued its interest as it trudged on the waypoint area called "The Kimberley."
On May 5, the almost two-year-old rover began puncturing a hole on the slab that is 0.63 inches in diameter. Afterwards, using its Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument, Curiosity shot a neat row of lasers inside the hole to determine Windjana's composition. The sparks of plasma that came from a reaction of the laser beam touching the surface provided ample data for further analysis, along with the rock samples that is now onboard Curiosity's laboratory.
To mark its finished business with the slabstone, Curiosity took a picture of the site with its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) attached on its robotic arm.
"[The image] combines eight separate MAHLI exposures, taken at different focus settings to show the entire scene in focus. The exposures were taken after dark on the 628th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (May 13, 2014)," said NASA in a press release.
No more drilling mission will be conducted, according to the scientists back at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Instead, Curiosity would be pushing through its original mission to reach the central peak of the Gale Crater dubbed as Mount Sharp, or Aeolis Mons as it is officially known, and in between breaks, it would study the samples it took from Windjana.
The mountain, which is a bit smaller than the Earth's Mount Everest at 5.5 kilometers, is the primary goal of NASA for further scientific studies. Since its discovery in the 1970s, the mountain remained a puzzle to scientists probing Mars.
"In our case, we have always felt that the hydrated mineral signatures at the base of Mount Sharp were an attractive reason to explore there, so this recent analysis hasn't had any effect on the team," said John Grotzinger, Curiosity's project scientist, in an email interview with Los Angeles Daily News.
While on its way, Curiosity would pass by an entryway called Murray Buttes, one of the most significant features on Mars named after Bruce Murray, an influential scientist in the field of interplanetary missions. The other area is called Murray Ridge, which is where Curiosity's decade-old cousin Opportunity has made its search for clues of ancient life on Mars.
Murray Buttes would serve as a "corridor" to Curiosity. The base of the mountain contains a cluster of tiny and steep-sided knobs, measuring to about almost the same size as a football field and with heights similar to a goal post. These knobs lie on dark sand dunes that can also be found at the foot of the mountain.
"Deep sand could present a hazard for driving, so this break in the dunes is the access path to the mountain," scientists at NASA said.
So far, the three major drilling activities of Curiosity had supplied enough information to help the scientists to assess ancient habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions, with the other two conducted in the Yellowknife Bay yielding enough evidence to suggest that an ancient lakebed environment existed a long time ago that would be favorable for microbial life.
