Curiosity's Location During First Scooping
This 360-degree scene shows the surroundings of the location where NASA Mars rover Curiosity arrived on the 59th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Oct. 5, 2012).

A Raw Image From MAHLI On Sol 65
This image was taken by Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 65 (2012-10-12 00:21:35 UTC) .
On Sol 65 (Oct. 11, 2012) of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity completed several activities in preparation for collecting its second scoop of soil. Like the first scoop, the next will come from a ripple of sand and dust at "Rocknest," and will be used for cleaning interior surfaces of the sample-handling chambers on the arm.

The Collection and Handling for In-Situ Martian Rock Analysis (CHIMRA) tool on the end of arm shook out remnants of the first scoopful and posed for camera inspection to verify it was emptied. The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) moved close some loose material on the ground to get a good look. Seeing more detail in the object will help engineers finish assessing whether this loose material from the spacecraft poses any concern for future operations. A raw image from that MAHLI activity is at http://1.usa.gov/Qgs5ha .

Sol 65, in Mars local mean solar time at Gale Crater, will end at 2:22 a.m. Oct. 12, PDT (5:22 a.m., EDT).

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Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

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