Scientists at Arizona State University's Mars Space Flight Facility designed and operate the Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES) instrument on each of NASA's two Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.
Mini-TES acts as scouting eyes for rover scientists. The instrument can look ahead and identify possible targets of mineralogical interest among the outcrops, loose rocks, and soils around the rover. This ability has proved of particular value with the Spirit rover, which is exploring the complex and jumbled geology of the Columbia Hills inside Gusev Crater.
So far, Mini-TES has led scientists to identify roughly a dozen different rock types -- and perhaps two or three times that number await more precise evaluation.
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