Curiosity First 16 Rock or Soil Sampling Sites on Mars

This graphic maps locations of the sites where NASA's Curiosity Mars rover collected its first 18 rock or soil samples for analysis by laboratory instruments inside the vehicle. It also presents images of the drilled holes where 14 rock-powder samples were acquired. Curiosity scooped two soil samples at each of the other two sites: Rocknest and Gobabeb.

The diameter of each drill hole is about 0.6 inch (1.6 centimeters), slightly smaller than a U.S. dime. The images used here are raw color, as recorded by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera. Notice the differences in color of the material at different drilling sites.

For the map, north is toward upper left corner. The scale bar represents 2 kilometers (1.2 miles). The base map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The latest sample site included is "Quela,"where Curiosity drilled into bedrock of the Murray formation on Sept. 18, 2016, during the 1,464th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

Curiosity landed in August 2012 on the plain (named Aeolis Palus) near Mount Sharp (or Aeolis Mons).

More drilling samples collected by MSL are available at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20845