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Curiosity Scrubs a Mars Rock Clean
astroengine writes "NASA's newest rover on Mars has recently used its Dust Removal Tool for the first time, clearing away a patch of rust-colored dust coating its latest target: a slab of rock called "Ekwir_1." The Dust Removal Tool, or DRT (yes, the rover's cleaning instrument is called "dirt") is a motorized brush with stainless steel wire bristles located on Curiosity's multipurpose Robotic Arm turret — a veritable Swiss Army knife of planetary exploration tools." Reader Sez Zero links to a story on the brushing action at the BBC, which adds that "Curiosity is building towards using its hammer-drill, the last major tool yet to be deployed on the mission."
So at least we know there's dirt on Mars, even if they chose not to send a dedicated life sensor, too. The Aeon piece is well worth reading, if that decision sounds perverse.
The Dust Removal Tool, or DRT (yes, the rover's cleaning instrument is called "dirt")
So what would you rather it be called, smartarse?
"This is my new unlimited power source that actually works. It will cure world hunger, promote world peace, we can use it to fold spacetime so travel anywhere in the Universe can be done safely and it looks like a kitten. I call it Fred."
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BMO
Why do the articles about "Stuff that Matters" get less comments than pointless crap like the article about a Trillion Dollar coin being banned? I can't wait for more results from Curiosity's progress. It's a shame that people only care about fails these days than successes.
Martian Archie Bunker: *peering through his invisibility blinds out his window* "Awww jeez, Edith, look at it now, it's rolled on to our property!"
Martian Edith Bunker: "Relax, Archie, he's probably just lost and looking for directions."
Martian Archie Bunker: "Ohhh no, no he's not. Sheesh those gypsy rovers are taking over out here. Look what happened to Earth, it's practically infected with those things! Oh, what's it doing now? It's polishing one of our yard rocks. Oh geez, oh geez, now it's going to come up to the door and ask for money. I didn't ask him to polish no rocks, he ain't gettin' any of my money!"
Martian Edith Bunker: "Well, maybe just a couple a' bucks, Archie. Look at this one, he's so slow and lonely looking. You know how slow those Earthlings are and they mean well, they really do."
Martian Archie Bunker: "Oh no, not this Martian. No sir. You give one of them a couple of Martian bucks and *BAM* suddenly there's a whole group of 'Thlings with their stupid robots standing outside everyone of our 49 One Twenty One convenience stores tryin' to polish your windshield. I'm not going to be the Martian that starts that invasion, no way."
My work here is dung.
Why do the articles about "Stuff that Matters" get less comments than pointless crap like the article about a Trillion Dollar coin being banned?
Well, I'm not trying to give Slashdot a free pass nor do I think the commentators are the best but to put this into perspective, you should consider these stories. You can have an opinion about the Trillion Dollar coin and you can speak about how you like or don't like and why that is. And it's quite polarizing so it's going to generate a lot of garbage. I think everyone is on board with Curiosity though. It's not polarizing. It's doing things that are far and above what I do in my day to day life so it's really hard for me to make a super intelligent comment about it. Saying how much I love Curiosity just turns into a circle jerk with people one-upping each other about how large their Curiosity tramp stamps are so I remain tacit unless I have something meaningful to add. The Trillion Dollar coin, on the other hand, I was all too eager to call names and engage in ad hominem attacks.
... blah blah blah." So it's hard to generate worthwhile comments here.
Also, there have been countless Curiosity stories and about two Trillion Dollar coin stories. So even if you assume that the population of readers has equal comments about both stories you're going to exhaust the Curiosity comments quickly. I'm not here to say the same thing over and over on multiple stories -- especially when all I can do is sit here with my jaw agape at how awesome this is.
So what exactly did you have in mind? My armchair NASA administrator posts aren't very productive so I read the story and scan the comments for something good. Nobody can chime in with "Well, when I polished rocks on Mars I used an anodized aluminum brush that got better
My work here is dung.
JPL is being cagey about this, but if life or even the biochemical signature of past life was encountered by MSL, the mass spectrometer / gas chromatograph would light up like a Christmas tree.