With eight months to go before the Mars Science Laboratory reaches its destination, the spacecraft is already getting to work. All systems have checked out beautifully — so much so that NASA didn’t have to perform course-correction maneuvers as planned — and the spacecraft is already making measurements.

MSL is carrying an instrument called the Radiation Assessment Detector, or RAD, designed to monitor high-energy solar and cosmic rays. It will collect baseline data that could be useful for planning a future manned trip between Earth and Mars, and it will be able to do so from inside its protective shell. It will also detect secondary particles, which could be created from cosmic ray interactions with spacecraft components. In some cases, the secondary particles could be more dangerous to human health than the original particles. via Popular Science

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