Two holes appear after Curiosity brushes Mars rock

Thanks, Mars Guy!

Anybody who has used wire wheels on a dremel can tell you that when the bristles start to get bent they can easily bunch up and create a point which would easily drill through soft rock. Its no mystery at all.

Pretty weird. 🤔
It would be nice if we had some sort of sample return mission in the works.
Fdjt‼️ 🤬
Fmaga‼️ 🤬

phillips or tourkes, can't make it out.

I'd think that the hole comes from inital approach of the brush to the rock and if the brush then sweeps along the surface, the drilling wires either stay in, or get pulled out and then bend, meaning they join the sweeping action rather than drilling a new hole.

What piqued my... "curiosity" (😊)... was the fact that these obviously spin, and yet, always are producing a rectangular patch with hemispherical ends. You'd think it's because it's spinning as it sweeps across, which perfectly explains that shape... and yet it CAN'T be doing that motion since the "drilled" hole is in the center, meaning it's stationary. 🤨🤷‍♂️

Electric arc machining, thunderbolts of the gods.

You found the small sand worms. 🪱 "The spice must flow!" 😃

A wire brush that's been in use 13 years is going to have some wear. It could be that some of the bristles are bent in such a way that they only tangle when spinning, leaving that groove.... just a guess

Thank you for sharing your expertise to more of the Curiosity imagery.
And once again for bringing things into perspective. ;)

Now there will be a whole lot of speculation about holes. To take a holistic approach, I would like to know just how those brushes operate. Do they spin independently? High speed? Low speed? Clockwise? Counterclockwise?

At some point, those bristles must have been hung up on a surface that caused them to spin until they were tangled, and forced into line with the axis of the brush's spin. If not aligned with the axis, they would be digging a larger ring shaped groove, roughly equal to the diameter of the brush.

It doesn't look like the tangled wire bristles are centered with the rotation axis. So, I don't think they are causing a clean hole in the rock surface.

Another great and much appreciated installment. Are there places underground on Mars today that may hold liquid water? Could a drill access them in the future?

(Michael Caine voice) "You were only supposed to blow the bloody dust off!"

👍👍👍

Its looking at me!

Now that it's been a few years, can we get a "tour" of Mars Guy's Mars dwelling at some point? Is it mobile? I'm guessing it's mobile as he never seems to be more than a few hundred feet away from ALL the various rovers on the planet as they travel around. Would make an interesting video. I'm sure it would be good for the channel. Thanks!

It looks more like crocodile skin.

More from Curiosity please!

If the wound-up knot of bristles are not at the centre of the brush, then that knot embedding in the hole they dug out could directly cause the oval shape by forcing the entire brush head to occilate around that knot-hole axis.

As a dust removal tool I find my name and the name of my brethren more exact than imaginative.

Well done on the click bait thumbnail

Perhaps the hole can be explained by Perseverance getting a bit too amorous with the rocks (it must be very lonely there) by spinning tne brushes far too vigorously.

Then it suddenly remembers it's just a probe, and doesn't have a wang, so makes off to save face.

Well? I'm just guessing here..

The hole looks like the axis of the dust removal tool pushed into the rock.

HOLeY curiosity Batman ! 😅

The Martian Duracrust thickness varies, thicker in the polar regions and not the same all over Mars. Must have punched through a thin section on some, but not on all the samples brushed.

*EarthGuy .
Sahara + Devon Island

Thank you for putting up a stadium for size comparison.

so amazing! cool video

Had to believe looking at mars pictures it once had water on surface its a reminder to us on earth look after our planet thanks NASA for sharing

"DRT" is the best acronym.

Unless I'm missing something, it's obviously caused by the centre post/pole. Not mysterious at all.

Good morning MG we definitely see that some of the rock formations are softer than others. The brushes themselves have not worn out in 13 years but look like they have come together to work even better. Great work as always

I was expecting ancient marks from millions of years ago from a lost high tech civilization from Earth or Venus.

Time to stop using the brush.

Claim of water on mars make me sick, it cant exist there at temperatures and pressures and would have had to come from somewhere like the vulcanism and ringwoodite on earth. Mars has cryo-vulcanism.

It seems to me either these is something different in the different center locations (where a hole might occur) or the digger (the part of the dust removal tool which digs the hole). Perhaps one of the center locations happens to be harder and resists the digger. Alternatively, and perhaps more likely, the digger is rendered ineffective - perhaps bent a bit, disentangled, or with a different static charge - then perhaps resets itself, if future hikes are seen.

Its because the bristles are longer when they get stuck in the center and can then burrow in a circular motion. When the bristles become worn they can sometimes be pulled towards the center and depending on the way the brush is made it can make the bristles cross eachother and begin to twist around eachother creating a a spinning pillar that drills a hole.

They were the points of egress for the three legged walkers. 😃

As suspected, Miller's weiner doesn't measure up to Musk's bank account. 😁

As a machinis I can tell you this reference to as a "Dwell mark". It happens when a running rotary branding too spins in one spot for a while with some downforce applied. A physical coriolis effect draws the bristles into the area of less motion and they extend to drill in. The rock looks very soft.

Great content, and thanks so much for the scale. First time I've seen it

Fascinating...⁉

Who owns those photo copy rights?

I don't think the elongated dusted area is the result of multiple passes. I believe the brush has an eccentric oval orbit not a circular one and the oval is created by a single pass/placement. The single central hole supports this theory.

thanks for putting a human size in for comparison

The centered thing is odd. Almost like. The clean edge making the shape effects the rock in the middle somehow.. but that's crazy...

Could just be super soft Rock that's never been under pressure. They do now kinda admit , oh wait, wind and air kinda might move stuff like water on Mars.. weaker gravity and rock that's not been compressed as much as sedimentary type rock.

The famous Martian Holes! That’s where Martians lay their eggs.

So there’sa curious hole in our understanding? 🕳️