It was an important find for NASA, which hoped the nuclear-powered rover could find evidence that was once capable of supporting life.

With the discovery of water, one of the key elements needed to support life, the rover is now looking for other necessary elements, such as carbon in soil or rock fragments.

Curiosity, an SUV-sized rover that landed on Mars in August, is about two months into what scientists hope will be a two-year mission.

While the rover is designed to scoop up soil samples and deliver them into analytical instruments, these first samples won't be analyzed. Instead, the samples picked up over the weekend will be shaken vigorously in the scoop for several hours to clean out the soil handling system.

The scoop sits on the end of , which also holds a drill, a dust removal tool and an imager.