The piece of “benign plastic” photographed by the Curiosity rover. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Malin Space Science Systems
The odd-looking mystery object photographed a few days ago by the Curiosity rover appears to have been positively identified now – it is just a small piece of plastic from the rover itself.
That was the tentative conclusion previously from scientists on the Curiosity team, who temporarily stopped soil sampling activities by the rover to take a closer look. It was necessary to determine whether the material was something that might interfere with that or was something lost from the rover that might cause other problems.
See Examiner.com for the full article.
Paul Scott Anderson is a freelance space writer with a life-long passion for space exploration and astronomy. He currently writes for AmericaSpace, Universe Today and Examiner.com. His own blog The Meridiani Journal is a chronicle of planetary exploration.
