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Curiosity Rover Fires First Laser Beam At Martian Rock

Posted by samzenpus on from the curiosity-shot-first dept.

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.

5 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. More ad laden slashdot bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Anybody want to tell me why they don't link to the source

    And anybody want to tell me why sppammers can post more frequently than I can?

  2. NASA link by caseih · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's a more official news link: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20120819b.html. I hope they will announce soon the actual results of the spectroscopy somewhere.

    Also a reminder that NASA's official page for this mission is:
    http://www.nasa.gov/msl/. This is probably a better source for MSL news than wired.

    Would it hurt slashdot editors to post the official NASA links as well as the submitted, third-party news links? We pay them to be editors after all.

  3. Re:One problem... by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Informative

    Close!

    Now it's taken to social media to turn public opinion against lasing of rocks.

    --
    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  4. Re:Bagger 288 by mirix · · Score: 5, Informative

    95% of the readers just wooshed.

    Bagger is series of gigantic bucket-wheel excavators, for the unitiated. Some (the biggest, at least) were made by East German TAKRAF. I think others were made in west.

    They made some pretty bizarre machines, like RB293 (of bagger series) and F60

    Gotta move that coal...

    --
    Sent from my PDP-11
  5. Re:NASA never met a problem... by gman003 · · Score: 4, Informative

    It originated as an acronym; it is now fully acceptable to use as a proper or even regular noun. Indeed, this seems to be the preferred usage, as shown by the Federal Department of Rockets and Laser's own usage.

    And I tend to defer to the Federal Department of Rockets and Lasers in matters regarding all things laser and/or rocket.