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Nasa makes final attempt to communicate with Mars rover
- ISL 8y agoCongratulations to everyone who helped to make such a successful mission possible. As an undergraduate, I remember friends working on the Pancam. One of our treasured instrument-makers at UW built the sundials. Science is a very human endeavor -- real people built, tested, launched, landed, operated, navigated, investigated, and interpreted. Some of the people who will use the measurements made by Opportunity have yet to be born. Thank you for doing something incredible.
- pvaldes 8y agoCould start sending again if eventually undigged by another dust storm or was just crashed?
- plopz 8y agoI don't think so. From what I understand the problem is temperature, if it runs out of power its unable to keep the important parts warm and won't be able to turn back on.
- trothamel 8y agoFrom my understanding, that's basically right. The Rovers rely on the heat from their electronics to keep the electronics warm. While it could recover, when out of power the electronics will drop below their design temperature, making it more likely something will break (or already has).
- ltc5505 8y agoMy battery is low and it’s getting dark. - Opportunity
- sizzzzlerz 8y agoDaisy, Daisy, tell me your answer t
- rzzzt 8y agoBicycle Built for Two Thousand, a collaborative recreation of the IBM 7094 singing: https://youtu.be/Gz4OTFeE5JY https://youtu.be/Gz4OTFeE5JY
- Kaos-Industries 8y agoDid it actually say this? I've seen it claimed on social media, but I don't understand how.
- LennyHenrysNuts 8y agoPower: 7% Lux: 16% Power: 4% Lux: 12% Power: 2% Lux: 10% Powe Something like that I would imagine.
- Kaos-Industries 8y agoThanks, Lenny Henry's nuts.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoYoung people tend to take the presence of rovers on Mars for granted thanks in large part to Spirit and Opportunity and the amazing job they did of exceeding even the most optimistic expectations for their longevity. Kids who are in high-school today don't remember a time when there wasn't a rover exploring mars. The people responsible for that success of Spirit and Opportunity have enabled a generation of scientists and engineers to grow up knowing that something built by humans is driving around on another planet. Prior to Spirit and Opportunity n rover on the surface of mars was the exception. Since Spirit and Opportunity it has been the rule. The Mars Exploration Rovers have been truly groundbreaking in terms of how we think about the feasibility of exploring other planets. The idea that we would send a rover to another planet and it would drive around studying for more than a decade would have been laughable in 2004. Now it is something that we think of as being perfectly reasonable. That is an amazing accomplishment.
- mcv 8y agoI remember the magic of Pathfinder. The Martian landscape in panoramic colour for the very first time. It's almost mundane now, but back then it felt like the start of the science fiction age. Then again, maybe it was.
- daveslash 8y agoCompletely agree. I'd like to add: people talk about colonizing Mars as a future event that will take place. I assert that we are currently in the early stages of colonizing Mars. We have [had?] multiple rovers driving around, and multiple science labs on the surface and a global satellite network in orbit. When we first landed a probe on Mars, someone asked Ray Bradbury "So, where are the martians?", to which he replied "We are the Martians!"
- kibwen 8y agoThe relevant XKCDs: https://xkcd.com/695/ https://xkcd.com/695/ & https://xkcd.com/1504/ https://xkcd.com/1504/
- ddoolin 8y agoI haven't laughed so much at an XKCD strip in awhile as I did when I read the second one. Thanks for sharing.
- lisper 8y agoThe first one made me cry!
- balfirevic 8y agoAnd today's tribute: https://xkcd.com/2111/ https://xkcd.com/2111/
- magduf 8y agoIt's dead, Jim.
- bregma 8y agoSo it goes. We thank the MERs for their service to our kind.
- umvi 8y agoWell, if we ever do send humans to Mars just have them visit the site and fix 'er up and she'll be good for another decade.
- Tepix 8y agoDon't forget to also fix Beagle 2!
- setquk 8y agoI think all chances of that being fixed ended with a loud THUD noise :)
- UncleSlacky 8y agoIt landed fine, it just didn't unfurl completely.
- chasote 8y agoYou might just like this short story I read in Wired a while back: https://www.wired.com/2016/12/jon-rogers-a-martian-goes-hunting-for-the-past/ https://www.wired.com/2016/12/jon-rogers-a-martian-goes-hunt...
- amysox 8y agoIn The Martian, Mark Watney briefly considered the possibility of salvaging Opportunity for its radio the way he did Pathfinder (before inadvertently frying its circuits), but decided against it, as, by then, he was on his way to the Ares IV MAV, and close enough for it not to matter much.
- parker55 8y agoMike Seibert, who was also part of the team, paid tribute to the rover, dubbed “Oppy”, saying “Goodbye old friend” and noting that the rover was the longest lasting surface mission yet
- sam6954 8y agohope it will wake up
- 2019ideas 8y agoThe utilitarian in me asks- What did we learn?
- ProAm 8y agoNASA, not Nasa.
- a-priori 8y agoIt's a style difference. The Guardian is a British paper. In British English, acronyms are usually written in title case, rather than all-caps as they are in American English.
- garg 8y agoExactly. They are using the BBC News style guide here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/collections/news-style-guide https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/collections/news-style-guid... And here are articles that address NASA vs Nasa: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7cf269-9ee1-341b-81a8-1ebfe73c80a0 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/collegeofjournalism/entries/8f7cf... https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art20130702112133530 https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art201307021121335... "our style is to use lower case with an initial cap for acronyms, where you would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word (eg Aids, Farc, Eta, Nafta, Nasa, Opec, Apec)."
- milesward 8y agoCool, then they can call it the Bbc. Oops, they never do that. #consistencyisrad
- krapht 8y ago? Most people say Bee-Bee-See, so BBC is consistent.
- Rebelgecko 8y agoThey still capitalize each letter for initialisms (acronyms where each letter is pronounced such as B-B-C)
- 8y ago
- tunap 8y agoI was rooting for this little guy to continue it's long legacy. Back around 2010 I happened upon Squyres' book on bringing the MER(s) to reality & I've been hooked ever since. Def'y a good read: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/832170.Roving_Mars https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/832170.Roving_Mars