We have started the transition to going back to planning on Earth rather than Mars time. By the end of 90 sols this will be complete. We are meeting tonight to mark the end of the Mars time part of the MSL mission. As people start to disperse back to their home institutions the team we will be working over at least 6 time zones including the UK. The planning and science discussions will mainly take place via the internet and telecons, still on a daily basis.
The CHEMIN X-ray diffraction results have allowed the first accurate determination of the mineral abundances in the martian soil. This gives us an accurate measurement of what the crust is made of and this data will be used in many geochemical and geophysical models of Mars. Further analyses during the MSL mission may allow the abundances of minerals, that while present in smaller amounts than the major minerals feldspar, pyroxene, olivine , can tell us about processes that altered the basaltic crust.
The image shows the first diffraction pattern of the soil. The well defined rings show that we were able to get sufficient mineral crystal lattice orientations in ther path of the X-ray beam to get a representative set of data. By measuring the radii of the rings and knowing the wavelength of the Co radiation source, the atomic lattice spacings of the minerals have been calculated. Patterns like this remind me of XRD analyses I made years ago on terrestrial rocks and have used to identify minerals in meteorites. I never thought at that time I would see such patterns from an XRD instrument in a mobile rover on Mars!
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