  We study the fragmentation of a liquid drop that is hit by a laser pulse. The
drop expands into a thin sheet that breaks by the radial expulsion of ligaments
from its rim and the nucleation and growth of holes on the sheet. By combining
experimental data from two liquid systems with vastly different time- and
length scales we show how the early-time laser-matter interaction affects the
late-time fragmentation. We identify two Rayleigh--Taylor instabilities of
different origins as the prime cause of the fragmentation and derive scaling
laws for the characteristic breakup time and wavenumber. The final web of
ligaments results from a subtle interplay between these instabilities and
deterministic modulations of the local sheet thickness, which originate from
the drop deformation dynamics and spatial variations in the laser-beam profile.
