NASA Mars Rover Begins Examining Strange Slab Nicknamed "Windjana"

An anonymous reader writes in with this bit of news about the Mars rover Curiosity. "NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is using several tools this weekend to take a closer look at a sandstone slab being assessed as a possible drilling target. If it fits the bill, the target could become Curiosity's third drilled rock. 'Windjana,' named after a gorge in Western Australia, would be the mission's first drilled rock that is not mudstone. To determine whether Curiosity should drill at Windjana, engineers have asked the rover to perform a number of tasks, including observations with the camera and X-ray spectrometer located at the end of the its arm and interpretations of composition at different points on the rock with a device that fires laser shots from the rover's mast."

Comments

Will we get more information about possible life?

[bejiitas_wrath]

Will we get information from this rock concerning ancient life? There could have been life on mars in ancient times that was wiped out when the atmosphere disappeared. That would be very intriguing for humanity. Better news than the search for this so-called missing plane or the Royals tour.

Re:Will we get more information about possible lif

[rmdingler]

Will we get information from this rock concerning ancient life? There could have been life on mars in ancient times that was wiped out when the atmosphere disappeared.

Sandstone would be a natural repository for the building blocks of life and biosignatures the limited mining abilities of the rover could exploit; a fact not lost on the very smart folks at NASA.

This would be very intriguing for humanity.

Unfortunately, not even nearly as intriguing as a mysteriously missing plane or the daily weather report for most of the humans presently making up "humanity".