Hello All!   
      
   Curiosity Zaps First Martian Rock    
      
   August 19, 2012:  NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has fired its laser for the   
   first time on Mars. On Aug. 19th the mission's ChemCam instrument hit a   
   fist-sized rock named "Coronation" with 30 pulses of its laser during a   
   10-second period. Each pulse delivers more than a million watts of power for   
   about five one-billionths of a second.    
      
   The energy from the laser creates a puff of ionized, glowing plasma. ChemCam   
   catches the light with a telescope and analyzes it with three spectrometers   
   for information about what elements are in the rock. The spectrometers record   
   6,144 different wavelengths of ultraviolet, visible and infrared light.    
      
   "We got a great spectrum of Coronation -- lots of signal," said ChemCam   
   Principal Investigator Roger Wiens of Los Alamos National Laboratory, N.M.   
   "Our team is both thrilled and working hard, looking at the results. After   
   eight years building the instrument, it's payoff time!"    
      
   http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16075.html   
      
   This composite image, with magnified insets, depicts the first laser test by   
   the ChemCam, instrument aboard NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. Image credit:   
   NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP [Full image and caption] [Latest images]    
      
   ChemCam recorded spectra from each of the 30 pulses. The goal of this initial   
   use of the laser on Mars was to serve as target practice for characterizing   
   the instrument, but the activity may provide additional value. Researchers   
   will check whether the composition changed as the pulses progressed. If it did   
   change, that could indicate dust or other surface material being penetrated to   
   reveal different composition beneath the surface.    
      
   "It's surprising that the data are even better than we ever had during tests   
   on Earth, in signal-to-noise ratio," said ChemCam Deputy Project Scientist   
   Sylvestre Maurice of the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et   
   Planetologie (IRAP) in Toulouse, France. "It's so rich, we can expect great   
   science from investigating what might be thousands of targets with ChemCam in   
   the next two years."    
      
   The technique used by ChemCam, called laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy,   
   has been used to determine composition of targets in other extreme   
   environments, such as inside nuclear reactors and on the sea floor, and has   
   had experimental applications in environmental monitoring and cancer   
   detection. Today's investigation of Coronation is the first use of the   
   technique in interplanetary exploration.    
      
   More information about ChemCam is available at www.msl-chemcam.com .    
      
      
   Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA   
      
   More Information    
   Curiosity's First Daredevil Stunt -- Science@NASA    
      
   Where Will Curiosity Go First? -- Science@NASA    
      
   Strange but True: Curiosity's Sky Crane -- Science@NASA    
      
   Opportunity Runs the First Martian Marathon -- Science@NASA    
      
   Mars Landing Sky Show -- Science@NASA    
      
   ChemCam was developed, built and tested by the U.S. Department of Energy's Los   
   Alamos National Laboratory in partnership with scientists and engineers funded   
   by the French national space agency, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES)   
   and research agency, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).    
      
   NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of   
   Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project, including   
   Curiosity, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed   
   and built the rover.    
      
   More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/msl and   
   http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ . You can follow the mission on Facebook at:   
   http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at: http://   
   ww.twitter.com/marscuriosity .    
      
      
   Regards,   
      
   Roger    
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: NCS BBS - Houma, LA - (1:3828/7)