After shooting it with lasers and X-rays, NASA’s Curiosity rover has determined that a rock nicknamed “Jake Matijevic” is of a variety that no other rover has ever spotted on Mars. 
 
 The rock, a highly fractionated alkalic rock type, is relatively well known to geologists because it is common in rift zones on Earth and island chains such as the Hawaiian Islands. 
 
 “This is a rock type which had not been seen before” by previous Mars rovers including Spirit and Opportunity, said Roger Weins, principle investigator for Curiosity’s ChemCam instrument, during a NASA press conference Oct. 11. It forms under relatively high pressure and often in the presence of water. While Curiosity is mostly focused on sedimentary rocks that could indicate the presence of past conditions for life, Matijevic is an igneous rock that likely formed about 5 miles under the Martian surface. 
 
 The rover had been investigating Matijevic mostly as an early test of the instruments on its arm, such as the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS), which bombards a sample with X-rays to determine its chemical composition. Curiosity also used its ChemCam instrument to shoot the rock with more than 400 laser blasts, vaporizing microscopic amounts and then analyzing the resulting dust and plasma. This investigation showed that the rock contained a lot of elements such as silicon, aluminium, sodium, and potassium. 
 
 “This was surprising because it differed from the composition from what we know of rocks on Mars,” said Edward Stolper, Curiosity science team co-investigator, during the conference. 
 
 Scientists think this rock formed in the interior of Mars when magma moved up through cooler rock. As the magma cooled, elements including nickel, iron, and magnesium crystallized out of it first, leaving behind a material rich in silicon, aluminum, sodium, and potassium, as well as a higher fraction of dissolved water. Though the rock was unusual, the Curiosity team was careful to point out that it was just one isolated sample and not to extrapolate too much about early Martian geology based on it. 
 
 Engineers also discussed the case of the mysterious plastic object that Curiosity had spotted several days ago while scooping bits of Martian soil. They concluded that it is likely a bit of bonding material that fell off the rover or a piece of tubing that came off the descent stage and was recently blown off the probe. In either case, “it’s completely inconsequential to the rover’s function” and no further pieces have been seen, said engineer Chris Roumeliotis, the lead turret rover planner. Curiosity is continuing to go through its Martian dust rinse and repeat cycle to clean out its sample delivery instrument of any left-over contaminants from Earth. ||||| NASA's Curiosity rover successfully performed its first laser-chemistry tests and resumed sand-scooping tests, after determining a mystery "bright object" in the sand probably fell from the rover. 
 
 A Martian volcanic rock dubbed "Jake Matijevic" was zapped by a laser aboard the Mars Curiosity rover. (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS) Story Highlights A mystery object looks like a bit of plastic from rover wire bundles 
 
 Scientists presented results from tests of a rock named "Jake Matijevic" 
 
 Rover will head for a rock bed 
 
 Scientists at the controls of NASA's Curiosity rover report that its first chemistry tests of a Martian rock revealed a surprise. The Mars rock looks a lot like volcanic ones found on Earth. 
 
 In a briefing Thursday, NASA scientists said they base the observation on the rover's first laser-beam-aided chemistry tests of a Martian rock. The triangular rock dubbed "Jake Matijevic," named after a recently deceased engineer from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., received about 30 small laser beam blasts aimed at revealing its interior chemistry. 
 
 Unlike the volcanic rocks spotted by past Mars rovers, the 2-foot-wide rock has a familiar chemical composition resembling ones found on Hawaii and other volcanic islands, reports team scientist Edward Stolper of Caltech. "It is a very close match in its chemical composition to ones that are unusual but are well-known on Earth," he says. 
 
 On Earth, such rocks form in volcanoes about 5 miles deep, typically in magma suffused with water, Stolper said. He said the team cannot say whether the Jake Matijevic rock formed the same way on Mars, or even what kind of asteroid impact or eruption carried it into Gale Crater, the 96-mile wide depression on Mars that the rover is exploring. 
 
 NASA's Mars rover Curiosity collected a scoop of soil on Mars. (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS) 
 
 The team performed the investigation of the Mars rock as a first test of its laser chemistry sensors. It also resumed tests of the $2.5 billion rover's scoop. The sand scooping tests are similarly intended for cleaning and calibration of chemistry sensors on the end of the rover's 7-foot arm, says Chris Roumeliotis of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 
 
 The rover has vibrated and dumped one soil sample, another first on Mars, and will take at least one more before sand is allowed to enter a test chamber on the rover arm. In the next few weeks, the rover will head for a rock bed that is expected to shed light on the geology of the rocks underlying Gale Crater. 
 
 Mission scientists report that a mysterious "bright object" spotted in a Martian sandpit that briefly delayed the rover's investigations this week is very likely a tiny bit of plastic shed from the rover itself. 
 
 
 
 "Probably it happened to fall from the rover," says Chris Roumeliotis of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Plastic ties bundle electric wires on the rover, and the team has noticed flakes missing from them, he said, adding that the team doesn't expect to see such flakes delaying future operations. "We do plan to take more images of it," Roumeliotis said.
– Curiosity has identified a type of rock that no rover had previously spotted on Mars. It has the same chemical composition as rocks relatively common on Earth, found in rift zones like Hawaii's volcanoes, Wired reports. They develop in high-pressure conditions, often near water, though it's unclear if that's how this one formed, notes USA Today. The discovery of the rock, nicknamed "Jake Matijevic" in honor of a late NASA engineer, doesn't quite fit with the rover's mission to find conditions for life; Curiosity was analyzing it primarily in order to test instruments like an X-ray spectrometer and a laser blaster. Meanwhile, the "bright object" that Curiosity earlier found is probably just a piece of the rover itself, engineers say—either tubing or bonding material that fell off the rover. Either way, "it’s completely inconsequential to the rover’s function," says a scientist working on the mission.