Curiosity Mars Rover CheMin Data

	Curiosity Mars Rover CheMin Data CURIOSITY ROVER REPORT-- JPL (CP) David Bish Reporting. @MarsCuriosity. (SOT: David Bish, Co-investigator, MSL CheMin Instrument). Hi, I'm David Bish, co-investigator on the CheMin instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory and this is your Curiosity rover update. We have been spending some time in an area called Rocknest, and this week we delivered a scoop of a dune to Curiosity. CheMin performs X-ray diffraction measurements on powdered rocks and soil samples. An X-ray diffraction is the best method for telling us what minerals are present in a rock or a soil because it is sensitive to the arrangements of atoms in minerals. As the X-rays strike the soil sample, CheMin shows us how mineral crystals distinctively interact with X-rays, and this image shows us our first X-ray diffraction results. The diffraction signals appear on the detector as rings that represent the fingerprint of the minerals. The rings tell us not only what minerals are present in the soil and but also how abundant they are. The CheMin data provide us distinctive signatures of the minerals plagioclase feldspar, pyroxenes, and olivine. Peridot is a variety of olivine. Just keep in mind that the olivine in the soil sample is much smaller than these crystals. Roughly half of the soil consists of poorly crystalline material, such as volcanic glass. Thus, this Martian soil appears very similar to some weathered basaltic soils that we see on Earth, in places like the flanks of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. You can <b>...</b>	From: okrajoe Views: 50 0 ratings
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