The CheMin XRD on the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity

by David Blake (Exobiology Branch, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, U.S.A.)

Friday 3 Jul 2015, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Berlin

CFEL seminar room I-III (DESY Hamburg)

The mission of NASA’s MSL rover Curiosity is to characterize ancient “habitable” environments on Mars. Curiosity’s instrument suite includes CheMin, the first XRD flown in space. CheMin is a transmission X-ray pinhole camera that obtains a Debye-Scherrer pattern (mineralogy the sample), and a histogram of all X-ray events (composition of the sample). Results of MSL’s first 1,000 sols (Mars days) will be discussed, including the CheMin’s discovery of the first habitable environment on Mars.