{"id":63948,"date":"2012-10-18T17:28:23","date_gmt":"2012-10-18T20:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=63948"},"modified":"2012-12-18T17:40:54","modified_gmt":"2012-12-18T19:40:54","slug":"ask-the-researchers-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/ask-the-researchers-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask the researchers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-63952\" title=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/011_Wiki_200-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"290\" height=\"139\" srcset=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/011_Wiki_200-1.jpg 290w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/011_Wiki_200-1-250x120.jpg 250w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/011_Wiki_200-1-120x58.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><span class=\"media-credits-inline\">NASA\/JPL\/Caltech\/MSSS<\/span>The Curiosity rover that landed on Mars in August is equipped with a laser spectrometer and eight other instruments to explore the planet and study what makes it different from Earth.\u00a0 The two planets were similar when they were formed about 4.6 billion years ago.\u00a0 Today however, while the Earth is full of oceans, rivers, rains and multiple species of living things,\u00a0 the red planet appears to be uninhabited and its water inaccessible.\u00a0 Learning about what happened to Mars may help us understand the history of the Earth itself.\u00a0 The job of the laser spectrometer is to reveal the makeup of samples like rocks, for example.\u00a0 In order to do this, the device vaporizes the material, using a high amount of energy.\u00a0 After a time, the sample loses energy and begins to emit photons or light waves.\u00a0 Researchers know what the analyzed material consists of because each element on the periodic table (like iron, calcium or phosphorus) always emits its own particular wave frequency.\u00a0 The method is also useful for analyzing everything from cancer cells to material at the bottom of the ocean.\u00a0 On Mars, the instrument\u00a0 \u2013 together with two others \u2013 will search for signs of life in the soil.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ramon de Paula<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>NASA Mission Engineer<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Send your questions to wikirevistapesquisa@fapesp.br, via Facebook or to Twitter <\/em><strong>@PesquisaFapesp<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How does the laser spectrometer on the Mars Curiosity rover work?","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[205,228,235],"coauthors":[93],"class_list":["post-63948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wiki-en","tag-astronomy","tag-engineering","tag-physics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63948\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63948"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=63948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}