X-ray and gamma-ray spectrometer, a magnetometer and a laser range-finder, as well as good, old-fashioned digital photography.

ECONOMIST: An erotic encounter

It is using its mast-mounted colour cameras and laser spectrometer, together with its arm-held "hand lens" camera and X-ray spectrometer, to try to find the best drill candidate.

BBC: Curiosity Mars rover deploys its rock brush

X-ray spectrometer is probably the most important instrument on board.

ECONOMIST: Astronomy

Brushing the surface of rocks with Curiosity's dust removal tool first enables the arm-held hand lens camera and X-ray spectrometer, in particular, to see features that might otherwise be obstructed.

BBC: Curiosity Mars rover deploys its rock brush

As well as using the rover's X-ray spectrometer on Whitewater Lake and Kirkwood to determine the chemical elements present, and thus get a better idea of their mineralogical composition, the team needs to work out the order and position of the rock layers to tell them something of their relative ages.

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But the science team on Curiosity needed a target to try out the first close-contact work using the rover's arm-held X-ray-spectrometer, APXS. So the dark pyramid was chosen and informally given the name Jake Matijevic in honour of a recently deceased rover engineer.

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