Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

We previously wrote about how Curiosity found a curious rock on Mars. A rock that appears to be shaped like a pyramid with almost perfect edges. The robot rover has now taken a closer photo which can be seen above.

The robotic arm of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity. Credit: NASA

And to the right a photo of how its robotic arm and “Mars Hand Lens Images” (MAHLI) is taking pictures and begins analysis of the rock.

The stone was then closer analyzed by the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS). The result of this analysis will be published when NASA is done with a secondary analysis of the data here on Earth.

The rock analysis is done with the robot shooting a pulse laser at the rock and by doing this it is able to establish its chemical composition, together with its ChemCam instrument, short for (Chemistry and Camera).

Below an animated video by NASA of the process of analyzing this peculiar rock.