NASA's Curiosity Rover now decides which Mars rocks to shoot all by itself

It's good to remember, sometimes, that despite the hell and misery that is the year 2016, we still have a robot on Mars that shoots rocks with a laser and sings 'Happy Birthday' to itself every year. I'm talking, of course, about NASA's Curiosity rover, which this week was given a major update by the space agency: the ability to select which rocks it zaps on the Martian surface.

All this zapping is very scientific of course. The Curiosity rover uses its laser to analyze the chemical composition of rocks and soil — hitting the target with a tiny pulse, and then scrutinizing the gas produced using a spectrometer. This tool records the color wavelength of the plasma generated by the laser shots, and from this, scientists can determine what...