Curiosity (rover) Ontario, NASA, the University of California, San Diego and Cornell University. The APXS instrument takes advantage of particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) and X-ray fluorescence, previously exploited by the Mars Pathfinder and the Mars Exploration Rovers. CheMin is the Chemistry and Mineralogy X-ray powder diffraction and fluorescence instrument. CheMin is one of four spectrometers. It can identify and quantify the abundance of the minerals on Mars. It was developed by David Blake at NASA Ames Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and won the 2013 NASA Government Invention of the year award. The rover can drill samples from rocks and
Mount Sharp begin an journey from the Glenelg area to the base of Aeolis Mons. On November 13, 2013, NASA announced that an entryway "Curiosity" would traverse on its way to Aeolis Mons was to be named "Murray Buttes", in honor of planetary scientist Bruce C. Murray (1931–2013). The trip was expected to take about a year and would include stops along the way to study the local terrain. On September 11, 2014, NASA announced that the "Curiosity" rover had reached Aeolis Mons, the rover mission's long-term prime destination. On October 5, 2015, possible recurrent slope lineae, wet brine flows, were reported