Canadian Tech goes to Mars! Happy Canada Day!

A close-up of APXS's sensorHappy Canada Day for all the Canadians in the world... and beyond!As the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL, or Curiosity) is getting closer to its landing on Mars on August 6, the Canadian Space Agency is also eager to see the project unravel.This laboratory on wheels will act as a motorized field geologist and geochemist, probing and analysing the Martian surface using, among other things, its Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) provided by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The spectrometer, specially adapted and tuned for the mission, will analyse samples to help ascertain the potential habitability of Mars. What is the APXS instrument? Roughly the size and shape of a Rubik’s cube, APXS's sensor will be able to gather data day and night. It will take two to three hours to analyze a sample to determine what elements it is made of, including trace elements. A quick-look analysis can be completed in about ten minutes. APXS, which sits on the end of the rover's robotic arm, will move in close to a sample and bombard it with alpha particles (charged Helium nuclei) and X-rays to study the properties of the energy emitted from the sample in response. ...