PASADENA, the United States, Feb. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- NASA engineers on Thursday sent the rover Opportunity on an 11-foot (3.3 meters) trip on Mars for a closer look at a mineral that could indicate ifthere once was water on the Martian surface.

    This was Opportunity's first real drive on Mars since it landedon the Red Planet on Jan. 24.

    The trip across pebbly soil on the Martian surface brought the rover closer to an outcrop of rocks that scientists want to spend days examining, in hope of finding more concrete evidence on water's existence on Mars.

    This week Opportunity examined its first patch of soil in the small crater where it landed, finding among the mix of particles what NASA scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena call strikingly spherical pebbles.

    A mineral map of Opportunity's surroundings shows that concentrations of coarse-grained hematite, an iron ore, vary in different parts of the crater where it landed.

    Scientist at JPL believe that hematite usually forms in liquid water, so they have a special interest trying to determine whetherthe rover landing sites ever had watery environments that could sustain life.

    The soil patch in the new microscopic images is in an area low in hematite. But the map shows higher hematite concentrations inside the crater in a layer above an outcrop of bedrock and on the slope just under the outcrop.

    After sending the rover 11 feet (3.33 meters), or halfway closer to the outcrop on Thursday, scientists planned for Opportunity to roll five more feet (1.52 meters) Friday in order to put the slabs of bedrock within reach of the rover's robotic arm. Enditem