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Curiosity Takes Historic Sample on Mars

At the center of this image from NASA's Curiosity rover is the hole in a rock called "John Klein" where the rover conducted its first sample drilling on Mars.

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VOA News

February 09, 2013

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has, for the first time, used a drill on the end of a robotic arm to bore into a rock on the planet.

NASA calls this a proud day for the United States and the biggest milestone accomplishment for the Curiosity team since the rover arrived on Mars in August.

Directed by engineers on Earth, powder from the rock will travel up flutes on the drill bit for eventual deposit into a special chamber for analysis.

Scientists believe the rock being drilled has evidence of what may have been water on Mars. A moist environment is essential for life.

Scientists are looking for signs that life may have at one time existed on Mars.

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Boston Bomber Spent 6 Months in Russia’s Most Violent Republic

The news of the Boston Marathon bombings circled the globe, and resonated here in Dagestan, a majority Muslim republic in Russia, on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Last year, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of two brothers suspected of the bombings and a long-time Boston resident, returned to Dagestan, where he had lived for a year during his youth. Dagestan was the land of his maternal ancestors. But in the last two years, this republic of 3 million people has gained notoriety as the region with the highest level of political and religious violence in all of Russia. VOA's James Brooke reports from Makhachkala, Russia.