Another dip in the solar systems oceans this week on planetary radio. Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society, we returned to the Aquarium of the Pacific for much

more of our conversation about the seas of Earth and the seas of other worlds.

Last week Emily Lachto-wallo took us on a tour of the Mars Science Laboratories cameras.

This time she'll cover the rest of Curiosity's science instruments.

You can see the video at planetary.org.

We're back in Building 180 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. planetary. Dr. Walla, welcome back, Emily. Thank you, Matt. Now, last time you took us through 16 cameras

on this baby, curiosity.

What are we doing this time?

This week, we're looking at the in-situ instruments,

the ones that are designed to analyze the rocks and minerals of Mars,

and these are the real reason that this rover was sent to the surface.

So we'll start with the really big ones, the ones that explain why this rover is so big.

They are the in situ instruments that we have to deliver

tiny amounts of rock powder too and they do complicated chemical analyses. The first

one of these is called Sam. Sam stands for sample analysis at Mars. This is the

instrument that's going to be able to detect light elements like carbon for

instance, and isotopes of carbon in the rock and soil samples that we get

into it. Organics. That's that we get into it.

Organics.

That's what we're talking about.

We're talking about organics, the kinds of materials necessary to build life.

Now, I am not actually talking about detecting life on Mars.

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