Curiosity, Red Planet | featured news

NASA scientists say tests on a Mars rock show the planet could have supported primitive life. The analysis was done by the rover Curiosity, which drilled into the rock, crushed it and tested a tiny sample. The rover was the first spacecraft sent to Mars that could collect a sample from deep inside a rock.

NASA's Curiosity rover reached out and touched a Martian rock with its huge robotic arm for the first time, then took off on its longest Red Planet drive to date. Curiosity spent the past several days investigating a strange pyramid-shaped stone named "Jake Matijevic," testing out some of the gear at the end of its 7-foot-long (2.1-meter-long) arm. These tools include the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer, or APXS, which measures elemental composition; and the Mars Hand Lens Imager close-up camera, or MAHLI.

The rover Curiosity, nearing Mars, has sophisticated tools to help answer the question: Did the Red Planet ever sustain life — and could it today? In a matter of days, a geologist unlike any on Earth will venture into alien territory.