TY - ART DB - Science History Institute DP - Science History Institute M2 - Courtesy of Science History Institute. Rights: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License TI - Mass Spectrometer ID - klwoj0c AU - Science History Institute DA - 2022/// YR - 2022 M3 - photograph UR - https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/klwoj0c AB - Components of a mass spectrometer as designed by Alfred Otto Carl Nier (1911-1994). Mass spectrometers are analytical instruments used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of one or more molecules in a sample. The components of the mass spectrometer pictured here include the ion source where a sample is ionized, a flight tube in which the ion beam is separated into its components, and three power supplies. Mass spectrometers also require a detector for analyzing the ion beams as they are received and a vacuum source. Alfred Otto Carl Nier (1911-1994) was an American Physicist who specialized in Mass Spectroscopy and the study of Uranium. He was involved in the Manhattan Project, mainly in designing the spectrographs used by the scientists creating the Atomic Bomb. After the war, Nier focused his research on space science and the noble gasses, designing the miniature Mass Spectrometers used on the Viking Lander Spacecrafts to sample and measure the atmosphere of Mars. Instruments similar to the spectrometer here were part of the atmospheric analysis instrumentation sent to Mars on the Viking 1 and Viking 2 spacecrafts. KW - Nier, Alfred O. (Alfred Otto), 1911-1994 KW - Mass spectrometry KW - Space sciences KW - Chemical elements KW - Mass spectrometers KW - Uranium KW - Scientific apparatus and instruments KW - Interplanetary voyages KW - Space sciences--Research LA - ER -