Electro Scientific Industries, Inc., a leading provider of world-class photonic and laser systems for microengineering applications, today announced that its New Wave Research (NWR) Divisions UP213 laser ablation system helped enable the dating of ancient asteroids at the Department of Geology at the University of Maryland. In conjunction with a high-resolution mass spectrometer, the UP213 system was used to determine the age and elemental composition of two newly discovered ancient asteroidal fragments, enabling new insight into the formation of our early solar system.