Curiosity has spotted something suspiciously--familiarly--shiny.
By Rebecca Boyle Posted 10.09.2012 at 1:15 pm 10 Comments

A Small Injury? The tiny, shiny object in the foreground might be a piece of rover hardware that fell off. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The Mars rover Curiosity’s first scoop on the red planet went well over the weekend, but then engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory saw something on the ground that gave them pause--and made them pause the rover. Curiosity is taking more pictures of this shiny object today.

The bright object in the image above might be a piece of the rover that fell off, and if so, NASA scientists want to determine where it came from and what it is. Then they’ll be able to tell whether this will affect the rover’s future activities. We added the arrow because otherwise the object is nearly impossible to see--which gives you a sense of the eagle-eyed examination given every postcard from Mars.

Curiosity checked out in full health after a month of tests, so it seems unlikely that this shiny bauble signals some major injury, but NASA is being careful. Sol 62 ended around 3:30 a.m. Eastern time today.

10 Comments

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Robot
10/09/12 at 1:24 pm

How cute, Curiosity positronic brain must partly be blonde. It was stopped in it's tracks, by something shiny! ;)

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drinny26
10/09/12 at 1:32 pm

that was really funny. lol

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mbwanderer
10/09/12 at 2:40 pm

Never mind that! Was it heads or tails?

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Oakspar77777
10/09/12 at 3:09 pm

I know the rover has a penny on it for scaling cameras.

Imagine the mind-fk, however, when it is a penny, heads down (so no date), then they look on the rover and that penny is still there . . .

Leading them to turn over the martian penny and see the date . . . .

(I'm not sure which would be the biggest freak out - the year of the rover penny? this year? next year? 2057 with a picture of Emperor Obama on it? etc)

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jeffsback
10/09/12 at 4:05 pm

Crystalline pebble...

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Silverbird
10/09/12 at 4:24 pm

Ohh, there are my keys. I've been looking all over for those. Thanks Curiosity. Can you air mail those back to me? Thanks.

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Robot
10/09/12 at 6:59 pm

Perhaps Curiosity came across the dreaded Martian toenail clippings, ew!

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rlb2
10/10/12 at 12:05 am

Was it this worm-like object here I posted yesterday at

http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6232

see here for close-up image:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-5JAHKcJQ3Cc/UHPZnaxN2UI/AAAAAAAADvU/a8Wop46JKpg/29.jpg

I even made a movie of it and just posted it on YouTube see if it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmw0th8vIEw&feature=youtu.be

Enjoy

Ron Bennett

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killerT
10/10/12 at 11:31 am

And we are seeing this before it is identified?
NASA should get their story straight first, or we might end up with another Roswell.
Although, many people already think this entire mission is a PR job to announce e.t. life to the world. The whole thing so far reads just like a Hollywood script.

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quasi44
10/11/12 at 8:15 pm

So they CAN see my new and improved laser pointer from here. Now to see if I can make them follow...



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