Curiosity fires laser beam at Mars rock
Source: Agencies |
August 21, 2012, Tuesday
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Print Edition
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THE Mars rover Curiosity zapped its first rock on Sunday with a high-powered laser gun designed to analyze Martian mineral content, and scientists declared their target practice a success.
The robotic science lab aimed its laser beam at the fist-sized stone nearby and shot the rock with 30 pulses over a 10-second period, NASA said in a statement issued from mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles.
Each pulse delivers more than 1 million watts of energy for about five one-billionths of a second, vaporizing a pinhead-sized bit of the rock to create a tiny spark, which is analyzed by a small telescope mounted on the instrument.
The ionized glow, which can be observed and recorded from up to 7 meters away, is then split into its component wavelengths by three spectrometers that give scientists information about the chemical makeup of the target rock.
Curiosity, a one-ton, six-wheeled vehicle the size of a compact car, landed inside a vast, ancient impact crater near Mars' equator on August 6 after an eight-month, 570-million-kilometer voyage through space. Its two-year mission is aimed at determining whether or not the planet most like Earth could have hosted microbial life.
The robotic science lab aimed its laser beam at the fist-sized stone nearby and shot the rock with 30 pulses over a 10-second period, NASA said in a statement issued from mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles.
Each pulse delivers more than 1 million watts of energy for about five one-billionths of a second, vaporizing a pinhead-sized bit of the rock to create a tiny spark, which is analyzed by a small telescope mounted on the instrument.
The ionized glow, which can be observed and recorded from up to 7 meters away, is then split into its component wavelengths by three spectrometers that give scientists information about the chemical makeup of the target rock.
Curiosity, a one-ton, six-wheeled vehicle the size of a compact car, landed inside a vast, ancient impact crater near Mars' equator on August 6 after an eight-month, 570-million-kilometer voyage through space. Its two-year mission is aimed at determining whether or not the planet most like Earth could have hosted microbial life.
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