Tag Archives: ChemCam

Vera Rubin Ridge brings out rover’s color talents

[Editor’s note: See also here.] Color-discerning capabilities that NASA’s Curiosity rover has been using on Mars since 2012 are proving particularly helpful on a mountainside ridge the rover is now climbing. These capabilities go beyond the thousands of full-color images … Continue reading

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Curiosity update: Heading for half a million laser shots

Sol 1821, September 19, 2017, update by MSL scientist Roger Wiens: Communication ties our lives together. If phone or internet service goes out in our area, sometimes we have to put our lives on hold for a few minutes or … Continue reading

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Laser-targeting AI yields more science

Artificial intelligence is changing how we study Mars. A.I. software on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has helped it zap dozens of laser targets on the Red Planet this past year, becoming a frequent science tool when the ground team was … Continue reading

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Curiosity is picking its own laser targets

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity is now selecting rock targets for its laser spectrometer — the first time autonomous target selection is available for an instrument of this kind on any robotic planetary mission. Using software developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion … Continue reading

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Curiosity: Locating RMI’s ‘distant deposits’

Sol 1264, February 25, 2016. The red boxes on two Navcam images outline the locations of two recent RMI mosaics seen here. Taken at long range by the rover’s Remote Micro-Imager, the mosaics show deposits far away to the north … Continue reading

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Curiosity: Looking at distant deposits

Sol 1263, February 24, 2016. The ChemCam’s Remote Micro-Imager shot two long-range, multi-frame views showing features of the terrain at the foot of Gale Crater’s rim. One series of images centers almost due north (above, toward 355°), the other northwest … Continue reading

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Curiosity: Northwest passage

Sol 1256, February 17, 2016. Curiosity rolled northwest about 25 meters, driving on the rough surface of the Murray Formation. High Dune lies off to the left. Shortly before the drive, ChemCam’s Remote Micro-Imager looked back at Mt. Sharp, taking … Continue reading

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Curiosity: RMI does a ‘Take 2′ on distant crater

Sol 1244, February 5, 2016. The ChemCam’s Remote Micro-Imager has reshot (above) the interior of a distant impact crater lying at the foot of Gale Crater’s interior wall, west- southwest of Curiosity’s current location. The arrow in the image at … Continue reading

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Curiosity: Not for today, but someday

Sol 1240, February 1, 2016. Curiosity’s Remote Micro-Imager (RMI), part of the ChemCam system, did some long-range shooting earlier today. Five frames, aimed almost directly south, catch layers upon layers in Mt. Sharp and, at right, perhaps the entrance to … Continue reading

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Curiosity: Primitive continental crust found?

The ChemCam laser instrument on NASA’s Curiosity rover has turned its beam onto some unusually light-colored rocks on Mars, and the results are surprisingly similar to Earth’s granitic continental crust rocks. This is the first discovery of a potential “continental … Continue reading

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