Curiosity’s ChemCam laser fires its 100,000 shot at martian rock
09 Dec 2013
The ChemCam laser instrument on board NASA's Curiosity rover recently fired its 100,000th shot, ANI reports.
ChemCam directs high-powered laser at rocks to determine their composition and also carries a camera.
According to Roger Wiens, Los Alamos National Laboratory planetary scientist and principal investigator of the ChemCam team, ChemCam had greatly exceeded the laboratory's expectations, and the data they had gleaned from the instrument would continue to enhance the researchers' understanding of the Red Planet, and would nicely complement information from the other nine instruments aboard Curiosity as the mission continued on its odyssey to Mount Sharp.
According to NASA, the laser formed part of an instrument called ''Chem Cam'' that made use of a laser ''to excite material in a pinhead-size spot on the target into a glowing, ionized gas, called plasma.''
The probe has been examining the surface of the planet since it landed on Mars on 6, August 2012. It has been conducting science research on rocks and soil and in the process of conducting experiments on Mars, has been constantly sending laser shots from the planet.
In a Twitter post, on Thursday, Curiosity's team wrote in the voice of the rover, ''#PewPewPew I've fired my ChemCam laser 100,000+ times on Mars for SCIENCE!''
The 100,000th shot came as one of series of 300 to explore 10 locations on a rock called ''Ithaca'' in late October, at a distance of 13 feet, 3 inches (4.04 meters) from the laser and telescope on the mast of the probe.
The start of December the instrument, fire its laser on Mars over 102,000 times, at more than 420 rock or soil targets. Almost all shots produce a spectrum of data that is returned to earth. Most targets get destroyed at several points with 30 laser pulses at each. The instrument has also sent more than 1,600 images taken by its remote micro-imager camera.
According to Wiens, the data they had collected from the instrument would continue to improve their understanding of the Red Planet.
Curiosity already had helped scientists to show the wet history of the planet that still retained enough moisture in its dust and rocks to satisfy the thirst of future astronauts.
