Radiation Assessment Detector

This color sketch shows a cross-section of the interior of a small metal box that supports a cylindrical telescope lens on top. Beneath the telescope lens, inside both the telescope housing and the box, are various detectors and circuit boards that will detect and identify energetic particles.
February 16, 2009
CreditNASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI
Language
  • english

About the size of a small toaster, the Radiation Assessment Detector will look skyward and use a stack of silicon detectors and a crystal of cesium iodide to measure galactic cosmic rays and solar particles that pass through the Martian atmosphere.
Image credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI