Curiosity’s Laser Leaves Its Mark

(Before It's News)

Before-and-after images from Curiosity’s ChemCam  micro-imager show holes left by its million-watt laser (NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP/LPGN/CNRS)

PEWPEWPEWPEWPEW! Curiosity’s head-mounted ChemCam did a little target practice on August 25, blasting millimeter-sized holes in a soil sample named “Beechey” in order to acquire spectrographic data from the resulting plasma glow. The neat line of holes is called a five-by-one raster, and was made from a distance of about 11.5 feet (3.5 meters).

Sorry Obi-Wan, but Curiosity’s blaster is neither clumsy nor random!
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Read the rest of Curiosity’s Laser Leaves Its Mark (210 words)

© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments |
Post tags: ChemCam, Curiosity, laser, Mars, MSL, Rover, spectrography, target

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