Curiosity is stuffed to capacity with special equipment. Take the ChemCam Remote Exploration Kit, for example. A special cannon generates 50-75 pulses of a 5 nanosecond infrared laser focused on the rock. The device analyzes the spectrum of light and can detect the luminosity of plasma balls in the visible, ultraviolet and near-infrared ranges. Another device irradiates samples with alpha particles and compares X-ray spectra to determine the elemental composition of the rock.