NASA's trigger-happy Curiosity rover has fired its 100,000th laser shot on Mars, a science milestone in its mission to determine what rocks on the Red Planet are made of, NASA announced Thursday.
Each laser pulse shot by the Curiosity rover packs the power of nearly 1 million light bulbs — strong enough to vaporize rock and dust from up to 30 feet away.
#PewPew #PewPewPew I've fired my ChemCam laser 100,000+ times on Mars for SCIENCE! http://t.co/yA5j5OQ8ut pic.twitter.com/jGiOMdruWY
— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) December 5, 2013
SEE ALSO: Latest Photos of Mars by NASA's Curiosity Rover
Originating from the French-made ChemCam instrument on Curiosity's "head," these beams are used to study the chemical composition of Mars. ChemCam has a spectrometer that analyzes the light emitted by the zapped targets on Mars. The instrument is sensitive enough to detect light from every element on the periodic table.
The 100,000th laser firing came as Curiosity was shooting a target called "Ithaca" in late October, according to NASA.
Roger Wiens, a planetary scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and principal investigator for ChemCam, said the laser-firing instrument has exceeded expectations.
"The information we've gleaned from the instrument will continue to enhance our understanding of the Red Planet, and will nicely complement information from the other nine instruments aboard Curiosity as we continue our odyssey to Mount Sharp," Wiens said in a statement from Los Alamos.
Rising 3 miles from the center of Mars' huge Gale Crater — where Curiosity landed in August 2012 — Mount Sharp is the rover's main destination. Scientists hope Curiosity, which is about the size of a small SUV, will uncover clues about the ancient environment and habitability of Mars while scouring the foothills of the mountain.
The Curiosity rover has already made some amazing discoveries on Mars using ChemCam and its other instruments. Besides findings that Mars had a rather wet past, Curiosity recently helped scientists determine that each cubic foot of surface soil on Mars is made up of 2% water, which may be enough to quench the thirst of future astronauts.
"ChemCam was designed to fire one million shots, so we’ll have lots of stories to tell later on," Wiens added.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
Image: Euclid vanderKroew
This article originally published at Space.com here
Space.com is a Mashable publishing partner that is the world's No. 1 source for news of astronomy, skywatching, space exploration, commercial spaceflight and related technologies. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.