Oct. 8, 2012: NASA's Mars rover Curiosity. In the foreground, near the bottom of the image, a bright object is visible on the ground. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)NASA officials say the Curiosity rover has made its first scoop of the surface of planet Mars and has detected a bright object on the ground.
Officials said in a news release Monday that they suspect the object might be a part of the six-wheeled rover, but they won't sample or scoop anymore until they figure out what it is.
The Curiosity has already beamed back pictures of bedrock that suggest a fast-moving stream once flowed on the planet.
The rover landed Aug. 5 and is on a two-year, $2.5 billion mission to study whether microbial life could have existed on Mars in the past.
Today's Mars is a frozen desert, but previous geological studies suggest it was once warmer and wetter.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/10/09/curiosity-rover-detects-bright-object-on-surface-mars/?intcmp=features#ixzz28oAxROFM
