Los Angeles OST Newsletter #28 - July 2012

Welcome to this new edition of the Newsletter of the French Office for Science and Technology in Los Angeles.

In 1969, the first man stepped on the moon. Now, 40 years later with much technological advancement, we are making progress towards the Red Planet. The Mars Rover, “Curiosity,” will land on Mars on August 5th, 2012. Its main mission is to determine whether there was preexisting life on that planet and to see whether it has potential for life. To be able to accomplish this, Curiosity is equipped with an instrument known as the “ChemCam,” which will determine the compositions of rocks and soil and identify samples that would be of great significance to scientists for analysis by other instruments onboard Curiosity. ChemCam fires a laser that is invisible to the human eye, with a series of pulses at the target rock or soil. Electrons within that target become excited and emit light. The ChemCam then receives that light and a spectrometer reads the light and determines what types atoms are within the target. ChemCam will set its sights on the rocks in its landing region, looking for the chemical evidence that water was once present there.

Our team wishes you a pleasant beginning of summer and "bonne lecture" !


Anissa Ghafarian, Science and Technology Intern
Manon Lecomte, Deputy Scientific Attaché
Fabien Agenes, Scientific Attaché

Table of Contents

- SCIENCES IN THE US
 LOCAL NEWS
 NATIONAL NEWS

- SCIENCES IN FRANCE

- NEXT MONTH EVENTS

- MORE INFORMATION
 IN FRENCH
 IN ENGLISH

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