NASA's Curiosity Rover Spots Shiny Object On Mars Surface

NASA revealed that Curiosity rover detected a bright shiny object on the ground when it began to collect and sift through Martian soil the very first time, the Daily Mail has reported.

Officials suspect that the shiny object could be a piece of robot rover itself. They have taken a decision not to sample or scoop soil until they confirm the unidentified object.

A video has been released featuring the first Martian soil being collected by the scoop on the robotic arm of the one-tonne science rover as it was lifted off the ground Oct.7, 2012.

Apparently, officials have planned to run the Martian soil through a battery of chemical and X-ray tests to identify minerals and provide scientists a better understanding on composition of Mars.

The retrieval of the first scoop is credited to be a major milestone for the Curiosity mission, the Daily Mail has highlighted.

"It looks and acts a lot like baking flour. And just like any baker, we shook the scoop to make sure we had a nice level spoonful. This also mixes up the soil for us, to ensure a good analysis," Ashwin Vasavada, a deputy project scientist, told Los Angeles Times.

The rover, which is on two-year $2.5 billion mission to the Red planet, was deployed to study the possibilities of microbial life existence on Mars in the past.

The Curiosity rover landed on Mars two months ago, and is currently anchored at a spot called Rocknest that measures approximately eight feet by 16 feet.

Previously, pictures beamed back of bedrock suggest that a fast-moving stream once flowed on the planet.