The Curiosity ship carries a unique item to the Red planet

On November 26, the Curiosity expedition will be launched from Cape Canaveral Air Base, Florida, USA with the mission of evaluating whether Mars can support microbial life.

MAHLI will act like a high magnifying glass, allowing scientists from Earth to get close-up observations of the Martian rocks and soil. This tool captures pictures of babies only 12.5 microns, smaller than the thickness of a human hair.

MAHLI is placed at the end of the robot arm, 2.1m long with 5 connections of Curiosity. This arm is also a technical masterpiece, allowing to turn every angle and learn the smallest things of Mars.

MARDI imaging machine

MARDI will begin to operate when Curiosity is about 2 - 3km away from Mars's ground, as soon as the Curiosity ships the heat shield. The camera will start taking pictures at a rate of 5 frames per second until the ship touches the ground.

The main purpose of MARDI is to help the MSL team get information about the geological characteristics of the landing area within a 160km radius.

SAM sample analyzer

SAM is the 'heart' of Curiosity with a weight (38kg), including 3 component tools: mass spectrometer, gas chromatograph and laser spectrometer. SAM's mission is to find carbon compounds - the bricks of life that anyone understands.

CAM will also consider other factors related to life on earth, such as hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.

The SAM toolkit is located at the body of the Curiosity vessel. The robotic arm will drop the specimens collected into SAM through a pipe. Some samples were taken by a small drill 5cm long, spreading small samples. This is also the difference between the Curiosity probe and its predecessors, since these ships are not equipped with drillers to access mineral rocks.

Machine for chemical and mineral identification (CheMin)

CheMin's mission is to identify different types of minerals on Mars and determine their abundance, which will help scientists better understand environmental conditions on the red planet.

Like SAM, Chemin has a connection line outside Curiosity to receive specimens collected from the robot arms of the explorer ship. The tool will project a beam of X-rays through the specimen, determine the mineral crystal structure based on X-ray diffraction.

Chemical identification camera (ChemCam)

ChemCam can be considered a laser gun
heavy with any weapon on Earth.

ChemCam can be considered a heavy laser gun with any weapon on Earth. This device can fire a laser beam on Martian rocks 9 meters away and analyze the components of the evaporated rock.

ChemCam includes many different parts. The laser is placed on Curiosity's antenna column along with a small camera and telescope. Three other spectrophotometers are placed inside the probe body, connected to the antenna column via fiber optic cable. The spectrophotometer will analyze the light emitted by excited electrons in volatile soil samples.

Alpha Particle X-ray spectrometer (APXS)

Curiosity will put this tool in contact with interested specimens and APXS will shoot X-rays and helium nuclei. The bombardment will cause the electrons in the specimen to be released, releasing X-rays, so that scientists can determine the elements based on the energy characteristics of the X-rays emitted.

Dynamic Albedo neutron machine (DAN)

DAN, located near the main body of Curiosity, will help find probes searching for ice and water-bearing minerals located below the Martian surface.

The tool will fire a beam of neutrons onto the surface of Mars, then record the speed at which the neurton particles reflect. Hydrogen atoms tend to slow down neutrons, so the probe will detect the signal of groundwater or ice if there are many slow neutron streams.

DAN can map water levels to a minimum of 0.1% at a depth of 2m.

Radiation exploration and evaluation machine (RAD)

About the size of a toaster, RAD is specially designed to help prepare for future human polls on Mars. This tool measures and identifies the types of high-energy radiation on the red planet, from fast-moving protons to gamma rays.

RAD observations will allow scientists the level of radiation exposure to astronauts when directly on Mars. This information can also help researchers understand the extent to which the Mars radiation environment interferes with the origin and evolution of life on the Red Planet.

Environmental monitoring machine (REMS)

This tool sits on Curiosity's antenna column that acts like a Mars weather station. REMS will measure atmospheric pressure, humidity, wind speed and direction, air temperature, surface temperature and ultraviolet radiation.

All this information will be integrated into daily and seasonal reports, allowing scientists to get a detailed look at Mars environments.

Landing, landing and penetration machines (MEDLI)

MEDLI is not one of the 10 main Curiosity probes because it is designed in a heat shield to help protect the ship during penetration into the Martian atmosphere.
However, the value of MEDLI is not small. This tool will measure the temperature and pressure that the heat shield experiences, providing information to engineers to improve materials for later exploration ships to Mars.