The Mars Curiosity rover unleashed its laser beam eye today, zapping a nearby rock dubbed "Coronation".
[The "Before" picture of the hapless rock. I await the "After" eagerly. Click to endeathstarenate, or grab a 10,000 x 2400 pixel image.]
[UPDATE: Here's the "After" picture!
The background image is from the Curiosity NAVCAM and shows the region around Greedo Coronation (you can see the rover's shadow on the left). The zoomed region in the circle shows the area of the rock targeted by the laser just before the laser hit it (you can see the edge of the rock on the right side of the zoom). The final zoom at the top shows the pit zapped into the rock by the laser pulse.]
This isn’t mad science! It’s cool science.
OK, well, hot science.
Here’s the deal: when atoms and molecules absorb energy, they can re-emit that energy as light. The nifty part is, each type of substance emits a different color of light, making it possible to identify them. This is called spectroscopy, and we use it in astronomy all the time. Many ...
