Mars Curiosity activates most Earth-like instrument

Lisa Grossman, reporter

(Images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems)

To take these latest, highly detailed images, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, which landed on the Red Planet just over a month ago, relied on its most Earth-like instrument: the Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI.

The 4-centimetre-wide camera was designed to play the role of a geologist's hand lens, a coin-sized magnifying glass typically worn on a lanyard around the neck. In the field, geologists use them to get close-up views of the size and texture of the grains that make up rocks, letting them distinguish between cemented sands and solidified soils.

But MAHLI's powerful lens leaves all human aids in the dust. The 2-megapixel colour camera can resolve features down to 12.5 micrometres wide. The microscopic imager on the last Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, could only see down to a few hundred micrometres.

"MAHLI's resolution was designed to resolve down to the size of a grain of talcum powder," said Aileen Yingst of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, in a press conference last week.

When the rover landed, all its cameras were covered by clear dust covers to protect them from the debris kicked up by the rocket-powered descent stage - the self-portrait above was taken before Curiosity removed the cover.

Last week, the rover team commanded the rover to remove MAHLI's dust cover, revealing the rocky ground below in stunning close-up detail.

MAHLI can focus on objects as close as 2.1 centimetres and as far as the horizon. This feature allowed it to take the gorgeous close-ups of the rover's wheels and underbelly, shown at the top, as well as the rover's ultimate destination in the background: the lower slopes of Aeolis Mons, also known as Mount Sharp, the 5-kilometre high mountain that may preserve signs of an ancient habitable lake bed.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/2345bbde/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A120C0A90Cmars0Ecuriosity0Eactivates0Emost0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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