The Opportunity Mars Rover may be officially offline for good, but its legacy of science and imagery is ongoing — and NASA just shared the last (nearly) complete panorama the robot sent back before it was blanketed in dust.
View More Opportunity’s last Mars panorama is a showstopperCategory: Mars
Mars looks dead, but don’t count it out just yet
Mars’ surface is a lifeless, unwelcoming desert. But beneath its red soil the planet still might be alive — geologically.
Big space news broke in 2018: Using a ground-penetrating radar aboard a Mars satellite, a group of scientists detected a thin 12-mile lake thousands of feet beneath the Martian south pole. Now, researchers have put forward a paper arguing that if there is indeed a sizable briny-lake underneath this ice cap, hot molten rock (magma) must have oozed up near the surface and melted the ice.
Such underground volcanism would have happened in geologically recent time, perhaps a few hundred thousand years ago, or less. Read more…
More about Space, Science, Mars, Geology, and Volcanoes
View More Mars looks dead, but don’t count it out just yetSee the Opportunity rover’s last image from Mars
NASA recently announced that they will not revive our friend the Opportunity rover. The 15-year-old machine sent over 200,000 photos to Earth, and will be dearly missed. Read more…More about Mashable Video, Mars, Mars Rover, Red Planet, and Opportunity
View More See the Opportunity rover’s last image from MarsOpportunity rover’s last picture is as grim as it is dark
A mighty dust storm swirled around the Opportunity rover on June 10, 2018, forcing the robot to shut itself off and conserve power. The dust blocked out nearly all the sunlight, turning day to night.
Opportunity would never awake. On Wednesday,…
Opportunity Mars Rover goes to its last rest after extraordinary 14-year mission
Opportunity, one of two rovers sent to Mars in 2004, is officially offline for good, NASA and JPL officials announced today at a special press conference. “I declare the Opportunity mission as complete, and with it the Mars Exploration Rover mission as complete,” said NASA’s Thomas Zurbuchen.
View More Opportunity Mars Rover goes to its last rest after extraordinary 14-year missionThe Opportunity rover is dead
The Opportunity rover is dead, at age 15.
After spending over 5,000 Martian days rumbling through the inhospitable red desert planet, NASA acknowledged on Wednesday that its sun-powered exploration rover hasn’t responded to over 600 attempts at contact since June 2018, and is presumed dead.
“I’m standing here with a sense of deep appreciation and gratitude to declare the Opportunity mission as complete,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
Deprived of sunlight by a dust storm the size of North America, Opportunity came to rest in a place known as “Perseverance Valley,” which sits on the edge of the 14-mile wide Endeavor crater. It is here that the 400-pound machine, built by NASA engineers in Southern California, will now spend millennia getting blanketed in red dust, for the Martian winds don’t ever stop blowing. Its batteries, completely bereft of power, will not turn on again. Read more…
More about Space, Nasa, Science, Mars, and Opportunity Rover
View More The Opportunity rover is deadGoodbye, Opportunity: 5 times the mighty Mars rover delighted the galaxy
It’s a dark, sad day for space fans the world over.
NASA is preparing to officially say goodbye to the Mars Opportunity rover, one of its greatest achievements, who’s watch has apparently come to an end.
In late January, Opportunity officially …
Elon Musk says Mars round could cost only $100,000 one day
Would you take a vacay to Mars if it only set you back about $100,000? Seems pretty cheap for an interplanetary trip, but Elon Musk says he is confident this could be true one day… depending on how many people want to visit the Red Planet. Read more…
View More Elon Musk says Mars round could cost only $100,000 one dayElon Musk says Mars round could cost only $100,000 one day
Would you take a vacay to Mars if it only set you back about $100,000? Seems pretty cheap for an interplanetary trip, but Elon Musk says he is confident this could be true one day… depending on how many people want to visit the Red Planet. Read more…
View More Elon Musk says Mars round could cost only $100,000 one dayNASA cubecraft WALL-E and EVE sign off after historic Mars flyby
A NASA mission that sent two tiny spacecraft farther out than any like them before appears to have come to an end: Cubesats MarCO-A and B (nicknamed WALL-E and EVE) are no longer communicating from their positions a million and two million miles from Earth respectively.
View More NASA cubecraft WALL-E and EVE sign off after historic Mars flybyMoody photo from Mars shows a giant crater loaded with ice
Flying over the frigid northern reaches of Mars, the orbiting Mars Express satellite captured images of the 50-mile wide Korolev crater filled with ice.
Korolev is an especially alluring sight, not just because it’s a well-preserved impact crater but…
ESA’s SpaceBok is training for missions in space
Students from two Swiss universities designed SpaceBok, a quadruped robot being trained for missions to Mars and the moon. Read more…More about Space, Mars, Moon, Students, and Training
View More ESA’s SpaceBok is training for missions in space