Drilled Hole and ChemCam Marks at 'Cumberland' . photonado

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Drilled Hole and ChemCam Marks at 'Cumberland'

The Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity was used to check the composition of gray tailings from the hole in rock target "Cumberland" that the rover drilled on May 19, 2013. This image taken by the rover's Mast Camera during the mission's 281st Martian day, or sol, (May 21, 2013) shows a row of small pits created by firing the ChemCam's laser at the tailings. The pits are near the drill hole, which has a diameter of about 0.6 inch (1.6 centimeters). Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates Mastcam. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Mars Science Laboratory mission and the mission's Curiosity rover for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .

Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Image released by NASA on 2013-06-05 as catalog id PIA17069