The Mars rover Curiosity has drilled into the Martian surface for the first time as part of an effort to learn if the planet most like Earth in the solar system ever had conditions to support microbial life.
Pictures beamed back to Earth showed a hole in a patch of fine-grained sedimentary bedrock that appears to have been in contact with water.
The drilling, which took place on Friday, produced a small pile of powder that will be fed into two onboard laboratory instruments to determine the rock's chemical makeup.
"First drilling on Mars to collect a sample for science is a success," NASA posted on Twitter.
Reuters reports that engineers spent days preparing to use Curiosity's drill, including boring practice holes earlier in the week. Previous Mars probes have had tools to scrape and grind into rock, but never a drill to collect interior samples.
Curiosity's first drill target was a rock laced with veins of what appear to be water-deposited minerals.
Engineers do not yet know exactly how much powder was produced, but are confident there is enough for a planned instrument cleaning and lab analysis, Avi Okon, a drill engineer with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement.
