NASA just strapped a frickin' laser beam to its Mars 2020 rover

We're still about a year away from the launch of the Mars 2020 mission, but NASA's shiny new rover is rapidly taking shape already. The rover, which is far more advanced than any machine NASA has ever sent to the Red Planet, just received what NASA calls a "Super Instrument" in the form of an all-in-one camera, laser, and spectrometer unit. The tool, called SuperCam, is the natural evolution of the ChemCam installed on the Curiosity rover which is currently in use on Mars. A new post on NASA's w...