'Bright Object' On Mars Actually Plastic from Curiosity Rover
This photo, taken by the Curiosity rover's ChemCam instrument on
Oct. 8, 2012, shows a close-up view of the piece (visible
slightly below and to the left of the photo's center) that
apparently fell off the robot. A small piece of NASA's Mars
rover Curiosity has apparently fallen off into the Red Planet
dirt, scientists announced today (Oct. 9). Curiosity team
members spotted the odd bright object on Sunday (Oct. 7) while
studying photos of the rover's first Martian soil-scooping
activity. Curiosity then spent much of Monday photographing the
scrap further, allowing researchers to determine that it likely
came off the 1-ton rover — though they're still not sure what
exactly it is, or if its absence will affect Curiosity's mission
appreciably. "The rover team's assessment is that the bright
object is something from the rover, not Martian material,"
mission team members wrote in an update today. "It appears to be
a shred of plastic material, likely be