Tuesday 23rd October Sol 76

We have reached the fourth scoop of material for CHEMIN and the SAM mass spectrometer, so steadily we are building analyses that will help us reach the goals of our mission. This has been a typical few sols for us: we gather data from the downlinks, plan the acquisition of data with our instruments during the next sol and discuss our science results and plans. 

As described in my Friday blog piece, CHEMIN uses X-ray diffraction to identify minerals by measuring atomic lattices (the ‘d-spacing’).  While Curiosity’s measurements are the very first X-ray diffraction measurements ever obtained on another planet, on Earth this method has become routine in analytical Sciences. Its invention, however, was a major achievement and 15 Nobel Prices have been awarded to 23 laureates for research into the method and its applications. First, the discovery of X-rays by W. C. Röntgen was awarded with the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901, then, in 1914 Max von Laue was awarded the Nobel Prize for his “discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals”. Only a year later father and son Bragg received the prize for their investigation of the structure of crystals. Many years and technical improvements later, it became possible to investigate organic structures with this technique, and in 1964 Dorothy C. Hodgkin received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the determination of the crystal structures of penicillin and vitamin B12. Even more recently, in 1988, Deisenhofer, Huber and Michel joined the circle, receiving the prize for their investigation of structures important for photosynthesis. 

Curiosity is the first to perform X-ray diffraction on another planet but there may be other such instruments to come.  For instance, some of the research at the Space Research Centre in Leicester concerns new designs for X-ray diffraction on space missions to asteroids .  The miniaturisation will also be useful in terrestrial applications. 

 The image shows our sieved scoop soil (it goes through a 1 mm and a 0.15 mm sieve) on the observation tray.