To produce one of those postage stamp-size chemical maps, it may need to do this thousands of times over the course of as many as eight or nine hours. Then PIXL measures X-rays in 10-second bursts from a single point on a rock before the instrument tilts 100 microns and takes another measurement. "It's kind of like a little robot who has made itself at home on the end of the rover's arm." "The hexapod figures out on its own how to point and extend its legs even closer to a rock target," Allwood said. Then those legs make tiny movements - on the order of just 100 microns, or about twice the width of a human hair - so the device can scan the target, mapping the chemicals found within a postage stamp-size area. After the rover's arm is placed close to an interesting rock, PIXL uses a camera and laser to calculate its distance. It also needs a hexapod - a device featuring six mechanical legs connecting PIXL to the robotic arm and guided by artificial intelligence to get the most accurate aim. To help find the best targets, PIXL relies on more than a precision X-ray beam alone.
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