Friday January 27, 2012
Happy Anniversary:
Mars Rover's Eight Year Mission
The Mars rover Opportunity has just marked eight years on the red planet.
While its companion rover Spirit bit the dust long ago, Opportunity has managed to keep on trucking as it searches for signs of life.
From Time:
It was on January 25, 2004 that the rover Opportunity — swaddled in its cocoon of shock-absorbing air bags — bounced down on Mars for a mission designed to last a minimum of three months and a maximum of just a year or two. Eight years later, Opportunity is slower, creakier and much, much dirtier, and yet it's still at work, hunkering down on the crater rim as it prepares to ride out another bitter Martian winter. When the relative warmth and sunlight of spring return, the golf-cart-sized rover will resume its wanderings, adding to the mass of data it's already collected about Mars's wet, balmy, and perhaps biologically active past.
Posted in: Science by bubblejam at 08:04 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry