Curiosity Rover Fires First Laser Beam At Martian Rock

A martian rock named "Coronation" was shot with 30 pulses over a 10-second period by Curiosity's laser today in order to determine what elements it was made of. “We got a great spectrum of Coronation — lots of signal,” Roger Wiens of Los Alamos National Laboratory, leader of the ChemCam scientific team, said in a press release today. “Our team is both thrilled and working hard, looking at the results. After eight years building the instrument, it’s payoff time!” Another rock known as N165 was selected for later testing.

Laser or Heat-Ray

[thoughtfulbloke]

shot with 30 pulses over a 10-second period by Curiosity's laser today in order to determine what elements it was made of

or as H.G. Wells put it,

...the Martians rattle for a time and then become still. The giant saved Woking station and its cluster of houses until the last; then in a moment the Heat-Ray was brought to bear, and the town became a heap of fiery ruins. Then the Thing shut off the Heat-Ray, and turning its back...

NASA Fundraiser Alert

[meglon]

NASA should offer the chance to name each rock it blasts for a donation. They could probably get free advertising from science mags, oddball news organizations doing stories, and divorce lawyers.

NASA never met a problem...

[gman003]

it cannot solve with the proper use of rockets, lasers and in one notable case, duct tape.

Someone start a White House petition to rename NASA to "Federal Department of Rockets and Lasers". Because who in their right mind (or several of the wrong ones) would cut funding to the Department of Rockets and Lasers?

Re:One problem...

[camperslo]

What if the martians ARE rocks?!

Maybe they feed on energy and like a fresh blast.

Meanwhile, pet rocks on Earth are nervous. Hopefully this won't stir religious conflicts on Earth involving those who believe the spirits of their ancestors live in rocks.

Curiosity will also be giving us data on energetic protons from solar events. Since Mars has essentially no magnetic field, much lower energy particles can reach ground level than on Earth. Measurements were made on the way there. From the background levels, it looks like about half makes it through the Martian atmosphere.
Studying solar weather on Mars may provide some insights as to what to expect when our magnetic field at home weakens. It's dropped 10% or so in the last 150 years which is a relatively fast rate of change.

http://www.stce.be/news/154/welcome.html [www.stce.be]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-it-true-that-the-stren [scientificamerican.com]