Monday, August 20, 2012

Curiosity has succesfully used its laser on a rock

Summary: Curiosity has zapped its first Mars rock. Using a laser, the river zaps the rock with a very high energy beam for only five billionths of a second. This releases a flash of light which the camera captures and sends back to Earth. Scientists can then look at the light spectrum to determine what the chemical make up of the rock is.
The first rock is being used as a control to test the instruments. It is expected to be very similar to other rocks on Earth.


BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19314638

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