{"id":332760,"date":"2010-02-17T11:40:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T16:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"Gizmodo-5473746"},"modified":"2010-02-17T11:40:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-17T16:40:00","slug":"nasas-laser-pulse-chemcam-is-destined-for-csi-mars-lasers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/332760","title":{"rendered":"NASA’s Laser Pulse ChemCam Is Destined For CSI: Mars [Lasers]"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>The best way to figure out what something’s made of? Vaporize it. With a laser. That’s NASA’s philosophy, anyway, in the form of a high-energy laser system that’s going to be mounted on the next Mars rover<\/a>. PEWPEW.<\/p>\n

The laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy system (LIBS), called ChemCam, will launch next year on the Mars Curiosity<\/a>. It sends an average of three 10-watt, five-nanosecond laser pulses per second, which may not be enough to stun a Romulan but is perfect for collecting and analyzing rock samples:<\/p>\n

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The laser shots vaporize a crater less than a millimeter across, turning its molecules into a 14,000-degree plasma. The atoms are shorn of their electrons, but as the plasma ball cools down, they return to a more normal state. The electrons drop into their orbits around the nucleus and as they do so, the little plasma ball emits light…<\/p>\n

The specific color of the light tells scientists exactly what element they are looking at if they pass it through a spectrometer, which can precisely measure the wavelength of light.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The technique could be equally handy right here on earth for forensics experts to examine crime scenes. Or, more likely, for evil genius supervillains to create them. [Wired<\/a>]<\/p>\n



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The best way to figure out what something’s made of? Vaporize it. With a laser. That’s NASA’s philosophy, anyway, in the form of a high-energy laser system that’s going to be mounted on the next Mars rover. PEWPEW. The laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy system (LIBS), called ChemCam, will launch next year on the Mars Curiosity. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5460,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5460"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332760\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}