The robotic science lab took aim at the fist-sized stone with its laser beam and shot the rock with 30 pulses over a 10-second period, NASA said in a statement issued from mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles.
Each pulse delivers more than 1 million watts of energy for about five one-billionths of a second, vaporising a pinhead-sized bit of the rock to create a tiny spark, which is analysed by a small telescope mounted on the instrument.
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| Mars rock zapped by Curiosity |
The ionised glow, which can be observed and recorded from up to 25 feet away, is then split into its component wavelengths by three spectrometers that give scientists information about the chemical makeup of the target rock.
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