Nasa's rover Curiosity becomes first ever robot to drill a hole in Mars for dust sample to see if life existed on the planet

Nasa's rover Curiosity has drilled a hole 2.5inches deep to take a Martian planet sample

 For the first time, NASA's rover Curiosity used its on-board drill to collect a sample of Martian bedrock that might offer evidence of a long-gone wet environment, the U.S. space agency said last night.
Drilling down 2.5 inches - 6.4 cm - into a patch of sedimentary bedrock, Curiosity collected the rock powder left by the drill and will analyze it using its own laboratory instruments, NASA said in a statement.
This is the first time a robot has drilled to collect a Martian sample.

The rover Curiosity is the first ever robot to drill for a Martian sample. The rock powder left by the drive will be analysed using instruments on the robot

 John Grunsfeld, NASA associate administrator for the agency's Science Mission Directorate said: 'The most advanced planetary robot ever designed is now a fully operating analytical laboratory on Mars.'
The hole can be seen in pictures taken by Curiosity next to a shallower test hole nearby.
 As images from the drilling operation streamed to Earth, some team members shared their excitement on social media.
The 'full drill hole was a success! I'm sure it was LOUD and they heard the drilling action for MILES!' tweeted rover driver Paolo Bellutta.
Curiosity drilled into a rock named John Klein' after a Mars Science Laboratory deputy project manager who died in 2011.

Nasa's Curiosity rover drilled this 0.8in deep hole on the surface of Mars as a test in advance of more drilling to collect samples for analysis to see if it could ever have harboured life

 In the next few days, ground controllers will command the rover's arm to process the sample by delivering bits of it to the instruments inside Curiosity.
Before the rock powder is analyzed, some will be used to scour traces of material that may have been deposited onto the hardware while the rover was still on Earth, despite thorough cleaning before launch, NASA said.
The drilling and analysis is part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project, which is using the Curiosity rover to figure out whether an area in Mars' Gale Crater ever offered a hospitable environment for life.
Previous Mars landings carried tools that scraped away the exterior layers of rocks and dirt. Opportunity and Spirit - before it died - toted around a rock grinder. Phoenix, which touched down near the Martian north pole in 2008, was equipped with an ice rasp to chisel frozen soil.
None, however, were designed to bore deep into rocks and collect pulverized samples from the interior.

Completion of the 'mini drill' test was confirmed in data from Mars received late Wednesday at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California

The one-ton Curiosity rover has been studying the area around the Gale Crater on Mars to see whether it could have ever been habitable by microbial life.