NASA Reveals Closer Image of White Mars Rock "Tintina"
- 11 years ago
Curiosity finds white rock named "Tintina".
Although Mars is known as the red planet, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Mars Curiosity Rover has found a white rock with signs that water existed on Mars in the ancient past.
The rock, now dubbed Tintina, broke when it was run over by Curiosity revealed a bright white color due to the presence of water-bearing minerals long ago.
The color of the rock shows that hydrated minerals formed at some point, which is evidence of water having been on Mars in the past.
Jim Bell, from Arizona State University in Tempe said: "The first time we tried to take the image of Tintina, it saturated the detector, because we had no idea we'd have something so bright.”
There have been other surprises during the rover mission as well including unfortunate computer malfunctions like memory glitches and a software file error.
Constant contact has been kept with the spacecraft, but the Curiosity rover stopped sending recorded data, and didn’t go into sleep mode as it had been programmed to do.
Although Mars is known as the red planet, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Mars Curiosity Rover has found a white rock with signs that water existed on Mars in the ancient past.
The rock, now dubbed Tintina, broke when it was run over by Curiosity revealed a bright white color due to the presence of water-bearing minerals long ago.
The color of the rock shows that hydrated minerals formed at some point, which is evidence of water having been on Mars in the past.
Jim Bell, from Arizona State University in Tempe said: "The first time we tried to take the image of Tintina, it saturated the detector, because we had no idea we'd have something so bright.”
There have been other surprises during the rover mission as well including unfortunate computer malfunctions like memory glitches and a software file error.
Constant contact has been kept with the spacecraft, but the Curiosity rover stopped sending recorded data, and didn’t go into sleep mode as it had been programmed to do.