Perseverance studies Ancient Water Lake on Mars using X-ray Lithochemistry Instrument (PIXL)

I just got back from a Rheumatology appointment at the VA and am in the process of catching up once again... I found this video of some work Mission COntrol commanded "Percy" to do in the Jezero crater using X-Ray Lithochemistry instrument (PIXL).

I looked up Litho-chemistry Instrument and Per NASA:
"The Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry is called PIXL. PIXL has a tool called an X-ray spectrometer. It identifies chemical elements at a tiny scale. PIXL also has a camera that takes super close-up pictures of rock and soil textures. It can see features as small as a grain of salt! Together, this information helps scientists look for signs of past microbial life on Mars.

Tech Specs:
Main Job - To measure the chemical makeup of rocks at a very fine scale

Location - Mounted on the turret at the end of the robotic arm

Mass: Arm-mounted sensor head: Nearly 10 pounds (4.3 kilograms)

Body-mounted electronics: About 6 pounds (2.6 kilograms)

Calibration target: About 0.033 pounds (0.015 kilograms)

Power - About 25 watts

Volume - Arm-mounted sensor head: approximately 8.5 by 10.5 by 9 inches or (21.5 by 27 by 23 centimeters)

Calibration Targets - Diameter of each of four disks: 0.19 inches (5 millimeters)

Pedestal base: 1.53 by 1.18 inches: (39 by 30 millimeters)

Data Return: Approximately 16 megabits per experiment, or about 2 megabytes per day

NASA's Text Description:
"On May 11th, 2021 NASA published images of Mars Jezero Crater as it was Ancient Water Lake long ago. The part of interest is the floor of an ancient crater that once held a lake. When scientists find a particularly enticing spot, they can reach out with the rover’s arm and use an abrader to grind and flatten a rock’s surface, revealing its internal structure and composition. Once they’ve done that, the team gathers more detailed chemical and mineralogical information using arm instruments called PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry) and SHERLOC (Scanning for Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals). NASA tries to date rock samples – to be collected later in the mission – that might preserve a record of ancient microbes."

Credit: nasa.gov, NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Enjoy!
Kerry
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