NASA Mars rover targets unusual rock enroute to first destination
Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - 20:00
in Astronomy & Space
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has driven up to a football-size rock that will be the first for the rover's arm to examine. Curiosity is about 8 feet (2.5 meters) from the rock. It lies about halfway from the rover's landing site, Bradbury Landing, to a location called Glenelg. In coming days, the team plans to touch the rock with a spectrometer to determine its elemental composition and use an arm-mounted camera to take close-up photographs.