Word: x-rays
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...Manning, Pathfinder's flight-systems chief engineer, dubbed "The Little Rover That Could." Having inched its way down the steeply inclined lander ramp, the six-wheeled Sojourner crept gingerly onto the Martian surface early last week and, in its first official scientific experiment, shoved the nose of its X-ray spectrometer into the dust at the foot of the lander...
...closed in to sniff out its mineral content. Displaying a picture of the rover at the rock, the ever buoyant project scientist Matthew Golombek joked, "Here we have proof that Sojourner sort of nestled up and kissed Barnacle Bill." The high-tech buss, profferred by the rover's X-ray spectrometer, produced an unexpected finding: the rock was apparently loaded with silicon or silicon dioxide, commonly known as quartz...
...basin was once the largest known floodplain in the solar system. Water rushed into the valley at up to 170 m.p.h., carrying a giant spelunker's bag of rocks with it. Without venturing very far from where the lander set down, the rover could thus use its cameras and X-ray spectrometer to sample geology from all over the planet. Sojourner is scheduled to conduct these studies for up to a month, depending on how quickly the extreme temperatures (from -15[degrees]F by day to -125[degrees]F at night) at last claim it. The Pathfinder lander, with instruments...
...rover's exploration of Ares Vallis will be, it should be worth the effort. The water that flooded the valley billions of years ago came from all over the planet, carrying all manner of rocks with it. Sojourner will pick through this geological boneyard, photographing the remains and using X-ray spectrometers to study their composition...
...Electron microscopy helps to overcome the phase problem [of crystallography], providing the initial picture that is sufficient for carrying out the [X-ray] high resolution studies," Huber said...