Pictures are worth a thousand words

Curiosity's self portrait made from many small individual images tiled together

Besides the variety of mechanisms used on board NASA's Curiosity rover for analyzing the composition of Mar's atmosphere and soil, the rover is equipped with several cameras, each with a different purpose. The cameras used by Curiosity do more that just see, some cameras detect any objects that the rover might crash into, another fires a laser into rocks and analyzes their composition.

To start with the main eyes of the rover, the Navigation Cameras (Navcams) have a 45 degree angle of view and are mounted to the front of the rover. Using visible light, they take stereoscopic 3-D imagery and transmit the data in black-and-white. The Navcams are used primarily by the NASA scientists and engineers to plan for ground navigation whenever the Martian terrain requires a safe passage. But if the rover is traveling on it's own, the four pair of Hazard Avoidance Cameras (Hazcams) are up to the job of helping the rover avoid any accidents while traveling. The Hazcams use the same imaging process as the Navcams, however they each have a 120 degree view for each side of Curiosity. This imagery safeguards against the rover getting lost or inadvertently crashing into unexpected obstacles, and works in tandem with software that allows the rover to make its own safety choices and to "think on its own."

The Mast Camera (Mastcam) takes color images, three-dimensional stereo images, and color video footage of the Martian terrain. The images can be stitched together to create panoramas of the landscape around the rover. The Chemcam fires a laser and analyzes the elemental composition of vaporized materials from areas smaller than 1square millimeter from Martian rocks and soils. The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) is the equivalent of a geologist's hand lens and provides close-up views of the minerals, textures and structures in Martian rocks and the surface layer of rocky debris and dust. With this device, earthbound geologists are able to see Martian features smaller than the diameter of a human hair. The MAHLI is attached to Curiosity's arm and is programed to take several pictures of itself, which can be stitched together to make a self-portrait.

Engineering group: Michael Molina, Marina Malaga, Nicolas Delloca, Andy Alfonso Sources: http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/rover/eyesandother/ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20121211b.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=156880341