Fire away, Curiosity.
NASA’s intrepid Curiosity rover on Mars now has the ability to choose an interesting rock target and fire its scientific laser at it autonomously.
Yep, that’s right.
A car-sized rover can select a rock it wants to shoot with a laser and then actually fire it all without human intervention.
Curiosity isn’t just firing its laser for fun, either. The plasma produced from the zapped rock helps scientists learn more about exactly what the target is made of.
The rover’s new autonomy is made possible by using software that helps Curiosity pick out rock targets based on brightness and size parameters laid out by scientists ahead of time, according to NASA. Read more…
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