Nasa rover Curiosity drills into its first Martian rock

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (REUTERS) - The Mars rover Curiosity drilled into the Martian surface for the first time as part of an effort to learn if the planet most like Earth in the solar system ever had conditions to support microbial life, NASA said.

Pictures beamed back to Earth on Saturday showed a hole about 1.6 cm wide and 6.4 cm deep in a patch of fine-grained sedimentary bedrock that appears to have been in contact with water.

The drilling, which took place on Friday, produced a small pile of powder that will be fed into two onboard laboratory instruments to determine the rock's chemical makeup.

"First drilling on Mars to collect a sample for science is a success," NASA posted on Twitter.