Guide to NASA MARS Rover Curiosity's Cameras - MAHLI

For inspecting Martian rocks and soil up close, Curiosity will use its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).

Sitting on the end of the rover’s robotic arm, MAHLI’s 2-megapixel color camera can focus on an object as close as three-quarters of an inch away.

It will act as a microscope, resolving material down to 15 microns, roughly half the diameter of a human hair.

MAHLI will be able to work night and day using four white light LEDs and two ultraviolet LEDs.

Images from the camera will be calibrated with a smartphone-sized plaque affixed to the side of the rover that contains colour chips, a stair-step pattern for depth, and a 1909 U.S. penny.

The penny was chosen as a nod to geologists’ tradition of placing a coin for size reference in close-up photographs of rocks.