NASA's Curiosity rover is set to inspect a slab of sandstone that could be a potential drilling target.
The rock could be the first drilling target that is not a mudstone, a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory news release reported.
The stone was dubbed "Windjana," after a gorge located in Western Australia.
The rover will inspect the rock using its camera and X-ray spectrometer and will also brush dust away from a segment of it.
If chosen as a drilling site the rover will collect dust samples from deep within the rock and deliver them to onboard laboratory instruments.
The first two rocks drilled by Curiosity were mudstones that told tale of an ancient lakebed with conditions hospitable for microbial life. The mudstone was located in the Yellowknife Bay and was about two miles apart. Now the team hopes to move on to sandstone.
"We want to learn more about the wet process that turned sand deposits into sandstone here," Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena said in the news release. "What was the composition of the fluids that bound the grains together? That aqueous chemistry is part of the habitability story we're investigating."
The team also hopes to find out why some sandstone in Windjana's region is harder than others.
Sandstone is erosion-resistant, and forms "capping layer of mesas and buttes" in the area. The drilling could even help the team gain insight into how the Gale Crater's layered mountains formed, as well as gigantic Mount Sharp right in the center.
"NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech, built the rover and manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington," the news release reported.
