View into 'John Klein' Drill Hole in Martian Mudstone

  • Released Thursday, November 6, 2014
View full credits
The hole that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover drilled into target rock "John Klein".

The hole that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover drilled into target rock "John Klein".

The hole that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover drilled into target rock "John Klein" provided a view into the interior of the rock, as well as obtaining a sample of powdered material from the rock. The rock is part of the Sheepbed mudstone deposit in the Yellowknife Bay area of Gale Crater. This image, taken by Curiosity's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera, reveals gray colored cuttings, rock powder and interior wall. Notice the homogeneous, fine grain size of the mudstone, and the irregular network of sulfate-filled hairline fractures. A vertical array of pits in the side of the hole resulted from using the laser-shooting Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument to assess composition at those points. The MAHLI took this image during the 270th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (May 10, 2013). The diameter of hole is about 0.6 inch (1.6 centimeters).

For More Information

See http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA17594

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

This page was originally published on Thursday, November 6, 2014.
This page was last updated on Tuesday, November 14, 2023 at 12:26 AM EST.

Missions

This visualization is related to the following missions:

Datasets used in this visualization

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.