Curiosity is firing its vaporizing laser today

[Ichingcarpenter]

Curiosity is firing its vaporizing laser on mars for the first time today. Will this be seen as an act of war against the martians?







NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is slated to fire its rock-vaporizing laser for the first time this weekend, shortly before the 1-ton robot's maiden drive on the Red Planet.

Scientists plan to blast a Martian rock called N165 with Curiosity's laser, which is part of the rover's remote-sampling ChemCam instrument. The 3-inch-wide (7.6 centimeters) stone sits just 9 feet (2.7 meters) from Curiosity, well within ChemCam's 25-foot (7.6 m) range, scientists said.

"Our team has waited eight long years to get to this date, and we're happy that everything is looking good so far," ChemCam principal investigator Roger Wiens, of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, told reporters today (Aug. 17). "Hopefully we'll be back early next week and be able to talk about how Curiosity's first laser shots went."


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Photo of the helpless martian, itss almost dead center and looks like a pyramid.

http://www.livescience.com/22507-mars-rover-curiosity-laser-big-drive.html

[Proud Corporate Dem]

1. It should be possible to weaponize this for purposes here on earth.

It certainly has potential along those lines! Very exciting.

[xchrom]

2. Phasers on Vaporize!

[2pooped2pop]

8. lol I saw that episode last night.

I had not remembered phaser rifles and made a comment on it.

[newfie11]

3. Hope they watch where they point that thing nt

[annabanana]

4. YOU'RE TOO LATE MARVIN!!

[Cooley Hurd]

5. Isn't using vaporizing lasers to kill a mere cat a bit of an overkill?

Oh... you meant Curiosity the ROVER! D'oh!

[jdadd]

7. Rover?.....I had a Dog named Rover.....

[renie408]

6. The title to this thread reads very differently...

if you have forgotten all about the Mars thing.

I read that and was thinking, "this is what I miss about the DU. The people here say the coolest things. YES!! Curiosity IS like a vaporizing laser!"

Doh!

[Ichingcarpenter]

9. Oh Look, an Earth Rover Robot!

[flamingdem]

10. haha Rover gunna rock its world today n/t

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. N165 has a twitter account

The remarks are hilarious


N165 ?@N165Mars
I guess @MarsCuriosity isn't my friend after all.




N165 ?@N165Mars
That wasn't very nice.







N165 ?@N165Mars
Starting to think maybe my new robot neighbor doesn't want to be my friend. Did I say something wrong?



https://twitter.com/N165Mars




NASA Curiosity Team is not amused.

[Ready4Change]

12. Pew! Pew! Pew!

KaBANG!

Huh. Mar's entire atmosphere is (was) explosive. Who knew?

[ellisonz]

13. *Target Destroyed*