Curiosity rover is get
ready to hold the first Martian rock drilling - in a carefully selected for
this purpose, which in the history have to splash water.
Extraordinary ton
machine should start work in the next couple of weeks.
The aim of the Boers
Curiosity will rock streams, received the working title John Klein - after one
of the leaders of the project's Mars rover, who died in 2011 There are some
compelling reasons to believe that in the distant past, when Mars was still
quite wet planet, John Klein was covered with water . "In general, these
stones were soaked with water," - says one of the scientists working with
the rover.
Recall that Curiosity
landed on August 5 slope of the crater Gale. The main purpose of his work is to
find evidence that the surrounding area was once quite suitable for the
existence of a simple life. The first five months to Mars, for the most part, including
tested and calibrated on-board instruments. One of them was a drill that allows
you to penetrate even into hard stones to a depth of about 2.5 cm, which could
not look any previous probe on Mars.
John Klein was selected
for the object of the first drilling chance: being part of an amazing diversity
of their geological site, it contains a lot of evidence that there was once
water. In particular, there are traces of long flowing streams of water. Found
near the moving stones, move that the local wind cannot afford - it requires fluid
flow.
Currently Curiosity is
a few meters from the John Klein. In the near future, scientists finally choose
the exact area for drilling and work boils.
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