Curiosity 'interrogates' Martian rock with laser - CNN

Curiosity began a two-year mission on Mars on August 6 and has been beaming back images of the surface of Gale Crater ever since. It is loaded with 10 instruments "to assess whether a carefully chosen study area inside Gale Crater has ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life," NASA said."We had a bunch of strong contenders. It is the kind of dilemma planetary scientists dream of, but you can only go one place for the first drilling for a rock sample on Mars," said project scientist John Grotzinger. "That first drilling will be a huge moment in the history of Mars exploration."<br />http://articles.cnn.com/2012-08-19/us/us_mars-curiosity_1_martian-rock-john-grotzinger-gale-crater