Mars rover uses A.I. to decide what to zap with a laser

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity now has the ability to decide what targets it wants to capture with a camera or hit with its laser all on its own. The space agency announced this week that using artificial intelligence (A.I.) software, developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the robotic rover is "frequently" choosing multiple targets per week all on its own. Most targets are still chosen by scientists curious about particular rocks or areas of soil they've seen in images that Curiosity has sent back to Earth, but the fact that the rover can make some of its own decisions about what to focus on adds a new, and important, capability to the mission. "This autonomy is particularly useful at times when getting the science team in the loop is difficult or impossible -- in the middle of a long drive, perhaps, or when the schedules of Earth, Mars and spacecraft activities lead to delays in sharing information between the planets," said NASA robotics engineer Tara Estlin, in a statement. Curiosity, which has been working on Mars since it landed in August 2012, has been searching for evidence that the Red Planet was ever capable of sustaining life – even in microbial form.