After the Laser Shots . photonado

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After the Laser Shots

Images taken before and after NASA's Curiosity rover shot its laser 50 times are shown here. The rover's Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument shot its laser at rocks exposed by thrusters on the rover's sky crane at the scour mark called "Goulburn." The images were taken by the instrument's remote micro-imager (RMI). They show differences in brightness at the impact spot as well as a slight change in shadows. The inset shows an area about 1 square-inch (2.5 centimeters per side). The target is about 19 feet (5.8 meters) away from the rover. JPL manages the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. For more about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl , http://www.nasa.gov/mars , and http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP
Image released by NASA on 2012-08-22 as catalog id PIA16091