NASA scientists said on Saturday the Spirit rover drilled a tiny hole in a Mars rock, marking the first time a rover has deliberately carved martian rock.
The rover used a drill at its robotic arm to make a circular, 2.65 millimeter-deep hole in a rock called Adirondack, said Stephen Gorevan, a scientist handling some of Spirit's workload at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
"We made some history here. We put the first planned hole on Mars," Gorevan told reporters at the JPL.
The circular hole could give scientists clues to Mars' geologic past, according to Gorevan.
Spirit, stopping data communication on Jan. 21 by its computer memory problem, returned to science operation on Thursday. Its twin, Opportunity, is on the opposite side of Mars, where it is examining an outcropping of bedrock.
(Xinhua News Agency February 8, 2003)
