<i>Mars rover makes surprising rock find</i>

A rock analyzed by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has a surprising and more varied composition that resembles rare rocks from the bowels of our planet, the US space agency said yesterrday.
"This rock is a close match in chemical composition to an unusual but well-known type of igneous rock found in many volcanic provinces on Earth," Curiosity co-investigator Edward Stolper of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena said in a statement.
"With only one Martian rock of this type, it is difficult to know whether the same processes were involved, but it is a reasonable place to start thinking about its origin."
On Earth, rocks with similar compositions usually come from "processes in the planet's mantle beneath the crust, from the crystallization of relatively water-rich magna at elevated pressure," according to the NASA statement.
Nasa said the initial results were just a preview, noting that Curiosity also carries analytical laboratories inside the rover.
Soon, it plans to analyze its first Martian soil sample.
Curiosity is on a two-year, $2.5 billion mission to investigate whether it is possible to live on Mars and to learn whether conditions there might have been able to support life in the past.