NASA's intrepid Curiosity rover on Mars now has the ability to choose an interesting rock target and fire its scientific laser at it autonomously. Yep, that's right. A car-sized rover can select a ...

Among Curiosity’s analytical equipment ... mounted beside the laser high on the rover’s camera mast. The telescope directs the light down an optical fiber to three spectrometers inside ...

UPDATE for Aug. 20: The Mars rover Curiosity has successfully fired its ChemCam laser instrument in a test. See the full story and images here: Pew! Pew! Pew! NASA's Curiosity Rover Zaps Mars Rock ...

Fire away, Curiosity. NASA's intrepid Curiosity rover on Mars now has the ability to choose an interesting rock target and fire its scientific laser at it autonomously. Yep, that's right.

We want to bridge divides to reach everyone. Yes, NASA's Mars rover has a laser gun. But there are no plans for Curiosity to zap Martians. This cool little laser – and it is tiny – is designed ...

3) Laser warm-up: The laser operates best at -10° to 0° C ... instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory mission’s Curiosity rover. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL More to come in Anablog as the ...

Pew!" says Space.com. NASA's Curiosity rover, which actually hasn't moved an inch since it precariously touched down on Mars two weeks ago, fired its nuclear-powered laser for the first time Sunday.

Here’s how it works. Look out, Mars: NASA's Curiosity rover can now fire its onboard laser all by itself. The car-size Curiosity rover recently began autonomously choosing some of the targets ...

NASA's Curiosity Rover got its first chance to fire its ChemCam laser at a rock laying about 2.5 m away from the rover. The rock Curiosity used it to laser on is about 7 cm wide, roughly the size ...

(Phys.org) -- Today, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity fired its laser for the first time on Mars, using the beam from a science instrument to interrogate a fist-size rock called "Coronation." The ...

You're looking at the next rock that NASA's Curiosity rover will shoot with its powerful laser and X-ray spectrometer as part of its first close-up science investigation on Mars. The rover has ...

That’s part technical restraints, part design: Curiosity is up there ... Target acquired, the rover’s ChemCam fires a series of laser blasts at the rock and analyzes the composition of the ...