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Mars Curiosity Rover's First Road Trip Planned
littlesparkvt writes "NASA has announced the first destination for the Curiosity Rover. They're sending it to 'Glenelg,' a natural intersection of three kinds of terrain. 'The trek to Glenelg will send the rover 1,300 feet (400 meters) east-southeast of its landing site. One of the three types of terrain intersecting at Glenelg is layered bedrock, which is attractive as the first drilling target. "We're about ready to load our new destination into our GPS and head out onto the open road," Grotzinger said. "Our challenge is there is no GPS on Mars, so we have a roomful of rover-driver engineers providing our turn-by-turn navigation for us." Prior to the rover's trip to Glenelg, the team in charge of Curiosity's Chemistry and Camera instrument, or ChemCam, is planning to give their mast-mounted, rock-zapping laser and telescope combination a thorough checkout. On Saturday night, Aug. 18, ChemCam is expected to "zap" its first rock in the name of planetary science. It will be the first time such a powerful laser has been used on the surface of another world.'"
People have been talking about doing Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy in space for decades, so I hope it works well with Chemcam. It has a lot of promise, both to speed up exploration, and in places like asteroids and comets, where it may not be feasible or safe to actually touch the target.
They have picked a boring nearby rock for the first target. There has been a discussion of whether or not Mars rocks have a "desert patina" (or varnish), and, if so, what is its nature, and even if it has a biological component. The Chemcam samples the top layer of the target, so may help to answer that.
Road: You keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
> ChemCam is expected to "zap" its first rock in the name of planetary science.
Take the quotes off that zap and smile when you say it, pal.
If a freakin' robot on Mars shooting a murderous, rock-vaporizing laser doesn't deserve the unquoted use of the verb "zap", nothing does.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.