Mars rover Curiosity has made its first scoop of the surface of the planet and has detected a bright object on the ground, Nasa says.
Officials said they suspect the object might be a part of the six-wheeled rover, but they will not sample or scoop any more until they figure out what it is.
Curiosity has already beamed back pictures of bedrock which suggest a fast-moving stream once flowed on the Red Planet.
The rover landed on August 5 and is on a two-year, 2.5 billion US dollar (£1.5 billion) mission to study whether microbial life could have existed on Mars in the past.
Today's Mars is a frozen desert, but previous geological studies suggest it was once warmer and wetter.