20 August 2012 Last updated at 07:32 ET By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent <\/p>\n
Nasa's Curiosity rover has zapped its first Martian rock. <\/p>\n
The robot fired its ChemCam laser at a tennis-ball-sized stone lying about 2.5m away on the ground. <\/p>\n
The brief but powerful burst of light from the instrument vaporised the surface of the rock, revealing details of its basic chemistry. <\/p>\n
This was just target practice for ChemCam, proving it is ready to begin the serious business of investigating the geology of the Red Planet. <\/p>\n
It is part of a suite of instruments on the one-tonne robot, which landed two weeks ago in a deep equatorial depression known as Gale Crater. <\/p>\n
Over the course of one Martian year, Curiosity will try to determine whether past environments at its touchdown location could ever have supported life. <\/p>\n
The US-French ChemCam instrument will be a critical part of that investigation, helping to select the most interesting objects for study. <\/p>\n
The inaugural target of the laser was a 7cm-wide rock dubbed \"Coronation\" (previously N165). <\/p>\n
It had no particular science value, and was expected to be just another lump of ubiquitous Martian basalt, a volcanic rock. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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