At a rock called “Clovis,” the rock abrasion tool on NASA¿s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit cut a 9-millimeter (0.35-inch) hole during the rover’s 216th martian day, or sol (Aug. 11, 2004).
The hole is the deepest drilled in a rock on Mars so far. This approximately true-color view was made from images taken by Spirit’s panoramic camera on sol 226 (Aug. 21, 2004) at around 12:50 p.m. local true solar time – early afternoon in Gusev Crater on Mars.
To the right is a “brush flower” of circles produced by scrubbing the surface of the rock with the abrasion tool’s wire brush.
Scientists used rover’s Moessbauer spectrometer and alpha particle X-ray spectrometer to look for iron-bearing minerals and determine the elemental chemical composition of the rock.
This composite combines images taken with the camera’s 600-, 530- and 480-nanometer filters. The diameter of the hole cut into the rock is 4.5 centimeters (1.8 inches).
