Curiosity Finds Volcanic Soils

Zothecula writes "NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has completed its first soil analysis of the Red Planet. The unmanned explorer used an advanced, miniaturized X-ray diffraction instrument that is part of the Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin) of its internal laboratory. The soil, collected at a site designated 'Rocknest' in Gale Crater, reveals that Martian soil is a weathered volcanic type similar to soils found in the Hawaiian Islands." And, of course, a shot of the area because it looks cool.

Comments

Re:What other kinds of minerals were they expectin

[Anonymous Coward]

They are in the commissioning phase for the instruments. They chose to sample this location precisely because it looked like it would be a fairly ordinary volcanic sand. They say in the press release that it's more or less what they were expecting. They weren't expecting big surprises, just confirmation that the instruments do indeed seem to be working.

They will have more interesting sedimentary rocks to sample once they move on to new sites. In fact, some finely-layered, probably sedimentary bedrock outcrop can be seen on the other side of the gully to the northeast of where the rover is now, in the direction they are planning to head next (the telescopic zoom on the mastcams is awesome!). I think the short-term plan is to drill some of those outcrops and run them through the chemical and other analyses. Then they'll probably turn around and head south to look at the main outcrops on the mountain in the middle of Gale Crater, but that's probably a month or two away at least.

Re:Which would we (humans) see?

[mcgrew]

Your brain color-adjusts all the time. Back in the film camera days, there was indoor film and outdoor film. If you used outdoor film indoors the colors came out way too warm/yellowish, if you used indoor film outdoors the photo would come out way too blueish/cool. The colors as shown by the film are what the actual colors were, but your brain adapts and changes the colors to "normal".