The Mars Science Laborotaire, or Curiosity as it's affectionately known, (paraphilia not withstanding) has been on Mars for a few months now but only lately have the NASA engineers begun to slowly unpack and test one of the most interesting parts of Curiosity's suite of gadgets: it's hammer action drill! A drill might be a common tool here on earth and most people would assume that it is a standard feature on mars rovers since they are sent there to study Mars' geology but in fact curiosity is the first rover with the ability to crack the surface of the red planet. Even the viking landers had scoops but they could only gather samples from soft loose soil. It's deep inside rocks and under the surface where much of the interesting chemistry lies (though Curiosity can't bore very deep hopefully it will find something of interest in those rocks). On a planet with little atmosphere and no magnetic field the surface of mars is bathed in ultraviolet radiation and high energy cosmic rays which would destroy any organic compounds, the ones vital for life, left laying on the surface. If Mars really was wet and warm long ago as many scientists believe and organic material or life did form as many scientists hope the best chance of finding it will be under the surface. It's possible that in the martian soil deep enough to be shielded from the harsh surface, kept warm by residual heat in the planets interior there's a few martian critters alive today. If they are there, or even traces of them, and realistically it was only traces of life and evidence of a watery past that Curiosity was designed to look for, Curiosity has the best chance yet of making some really exciting discoveries inside those martian rocks.
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