Pew! Pew! Pew! Mars Rover Curiosity Can Now Fire Laser On Its Own

Look out, Mars: NASA's Curiosity rover can now fire its onboard laser all by itself. The car-size Curiosity rover recently began autonomously choosing some of the targets for its ChemCam instrument, which blasts Martian rocks or soil with a laser and analyzes the composition of the resulting vapor. Mission scientists here on Earth still select most ChemCam targets, after poring over images captured by the rover, NASA officials said.