Mars rover snaps microscopic photos of soil
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This microscopic image shows a detail of the soil and pebbles at the landing site of the rover Opportunity.
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NASA's twin rovers reached out their robotic arms to touch the surface of Mars, marking the first time that both spacecraft have been in full swing. CNN's Julie Cevene reports (February 3)
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PASADENA, California (AP) -- NASA's Opportunity rover took the first-ever microscopic photographs of the martian soil, which scientists believe could contain evidence that the now-dry planet once was a wetter world capable of sustaining life.
The pictures, released Tuesday, show a coin-sized patch of grainy soil peppered with tiny pebbles. Opportunity captured the images with its microscopic imager, one of four instruments at the end of its robotic arm.
The rover and its twin, Spirit, are 6,600 miles apart on opposite sides of Mars, using their mechanical arms to examine the ground beneath their wheels.
Opportunity rolled off its lander and onto the ground Saturday, a week after it landed. Spirit arrived Januaru 3 but was sidelined for nearly two weeks by software problems. It returned to work as engineers were still working the kinks out.
NASA announced it will name seven hills east of Spirit's landing site in memory of the astronauts killed a year ago aboard the space shuttle Columbia. The agency must submit the names to the International Astronomical Union for official designation.
NASA previously said it would name another group of hills at the site in memory of the three Apollo astronauts killed in a launch pad fire in 1967.
The agency next planned to have Opportunity put its Mossbauer spectrometer to the ground. The German-built instrument was designed to measure the composition and abundance of iron-bearing minerals.
NASA also planned to have Spirit brush dust off the surface of a volcanic rock called Adirondack so that rover's microscopic imager can photograph it.
The rovers were launched to search for geological evidence of water on Mars billions of years ago.
Opportunity already has discovered an iron-rich mineral called gray hematite. Preliminary measurements suggest the mineral is of a variety that forms in liquid water.
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