Yesterday (NASA) and the world said farewell to the Martian rover Opportunity. After several weeks of attempts to revive the rover -overwhelmed last June by one of the worst dust storms of the decade, NASA gave up.
“Opportunity landed on Mars in January 2004 for a mission that was supposed to last 90 Martian days. Its twin rover, Spirit, had landed three weeks earlier on the other side of the planet. Spirit succumbed to a stuck wheel in 2010. But Opportunity kept going. Over 15 years, the rover found abundant evidence that water once flowed and pooled on the Red Planet’s surface. It also shattered records for planetary exploration and shaped Mars missions for years to come.
But on June 10, 2018 — 5,111 Martian days into its 90-day mission — Opportunity went silent, caught in a massive planetwide dust storm. At first, the rover team hoped Opportunity could ride out the storm and wake up when the skies cleared. But it didn’t.” (Read the whole story here).
And as with the (very popular) duo Rosetta-Philae, everybody feels sad to see Opportunity go. So long, little rover, and thank you for all the science!
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